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Chester  Harvey    Rov.ell 


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■,g^g. 


Fighting  the  Spoilsmen 

Reminiscences  of 
The  Civil  Service  Reform  Movement 


By 

William  Dudley  Foulke,  LL.D. 

Author  of  "Slav   and    Saxon,"    "Maya,"    "Life   of   O.    P.    Morton,' 

"  Protean  Papers,"  "  History  of  the  Langobards,"  "  Dorothy  Day," 

"  Masterpieces  of  the  Masters  of  Fiction,"  "  Some  Love  Songs 

of  Petrarch,"  "  Lyrics  of  War  and  Peace,"  etc. 


0t  tftje  Jiutltov 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  and  London 
XTbc   l:n(cftcrbochcr   pccsa 

1919 


Copyright,  19 19 

BY 

WILLIAM  DUDLEY  FOULKE 


/^ 


Ube  ftnicfterbocltev  f>re00,  l^ew  l^orlt 


rK4q5 


To  THE  Memory 

OF 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 

"  We  have  laid  our  hands  on  the  barbaric  palace  of  patronage  and  have  written 
'Mene,  mene,'  upon  its  walls,  nor  will  it  be  long,  as  I  believe,  until  they  are  laid  in 
the  dust." 

A  kingly  spirit  and  a  vision  clear, 

A  prophet's  prescience  and  a  statesman's  mind, 
A  face  to  win  us  and  a  smile  to  cheer, 

A  heart  that  glowed  with  love  of  humankind ! 
His  voice  was  music  and  his  words  were  song, 

His  ways  were  gentle  but  his  reason  just, 
Quick  to  discern  the  right  and  scourge  the  wrong, 

And  him  we  followed  with  unfaltering  trust. 
He  wrote  his  "Mene,  mene,"  on  the  wall, 

Then  passed,  and  lo!  before  our  eager  eyes 
The  spoilsman's  palace  crumbles  to  its  fall 

And  on  the  ruins  goodlier  mansions  rise. 
Too  soon  his  voice  grew  silent,  yet  its  thrill 
Along  the  cliffs  of  memory  echoes  still! 


IV1584353 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. — Early  Efforts  for  Reform 

II. — Investigation  of  the   Indiana   Hospital 
FOR  the  Insane     .... 

III. — Investigations    of    the    Federal    Civil 
Service 


IV. — The  Civil  Service  under  Harrison 

V. — Subsequent  History  of  the  Census 

VI. — Close  of  Harrison  Administration 

VII. — Cleveland's  Second  Term 

VIII. — Superannuation        .... 

IX. — The  First  Bryan  Campaign — McKinley* 
Administration      .... 

X. — The  New  Investigating  Committee 

XI. — Roosevelt's  Administration     . 

XII. — The  Reforms  Accomplished 

XIII. — The    Campaign    of    1904 — Roosevelt's 
Characteristics    .... 

XIV. — The  Taft  Campaign — Charges  of  Coercion 

XV. — The  Taft  Administration 


PAGE 
I 


16 

37 
46 

73 
86 

94 
106 

no 

129"^ 

144 

162 

199 
207 
213 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

XVI. — Civil  Service  in  States  and  Municipalities  219 

^v^   XVII. — The  Wilson  Administration     .         .         .  226 

XVIII. — Wilson's  Second  Term — Conclusion  .  255 


APPENDIX 

^ I. — Civil  Service  Reform      ....     261 

II. — What  have  Civil  Service  Reformers  a 
Right  to  Expect  from  the  Republican 
Party? 268 

III. — The  Reform  of  the  Civil  Service     .         .    275 

IV. — Secret  Sessions  of  the  Senate        .         .     280 

V. — Speech  at  Reform  Club,  Boston,  September 

10,  1892  ......     286 

VI. — Platforms  and  Promises  .         .         .     295 

VII. — Are  Presidential  Appointments  for  Sale  ? .     306 

VIII. — The  Advance  of  the  Competitive  System       311 

— -  IX. — City  Government  by  Experts  under  the 

Competitive  System       .         .         .         .321 

X. — Brief  in  Opposition  to  Exclusive  Power 
OVER  Removals  by  Civil  Service  Com- 
missions          326 

Index 337 


Fighting  the  Spoilsmen 


Fighting    the    Spoilsmen 


CHAPTER  I 

EARLY  EFFORTS  FOR  REFORM 

Among  the  voluntary  associations  which  have  existed  in 
this  country  for  the  propagation  of  various  political  and 
social  movements  there  are  two  which  have  fairly  won  an 
honorable  place  in  history:  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  which 
played  an  important  part  in  the  movement  for  the  abolition 
of  human  bondage,  and  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform 
League  which,  with  its  constituent  local  and  State  associations, 
has  done  much  to  bring  about  the  establishment  of  the  com- 
petitive system  in  the  civil  service. 

The  history  of  such  organizations  ought  to  be  preserved, 
not  only  on  account  of  the  things  they  did,  but  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  power  of  comparatively  small  groups  of  men,  when 
properly  organized  and  skillfully  led,  to  accomplish  by  long 
and  persistent  efforts  great  public  reforms.  It  shows  what 
immense  possibilities  there  are  in  voluntary  association  with 
self-sacrificing  devotion  to  a  cherished  cause. 

The  work  of  the  iVnti-Slavery  Society  has  long  since  been 
completed  and  that  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform 
League  has  passed  the  most  important  crises  of  the  issue  which 
it  represents  and  has  accomplished  a  great  part  of  what  it 
was  striving  for  in  the  federal  service,  yet  its  continued  exist- 
ence will  still  be  necessary  for  many  years  not  only  in  extend- 
ing the  reform  into  the  States  and  mimicipalities  of  our 


2        EARLY  EFFORTS  FOR  REFORM 

country  but  also  in  preventing  a  retrograde  movement  to  the 
spoils  system  from  which  we  are  not  entirely  secure.  It  is 
therefore  not  yet  time  to  write  an  account  of  the  National 
Civil  Service  Reform  League  or  of  the  movement  which  it 
led,  as  a  completed  chapter  in  the  history  of  our  institutions. 
But  the  men  who  were  active  in  the  most  stirring  periods 
of  this  movement  are  now  rapidly  passing  away  and  the  ad- 
vancing age  of  those  who  remain  reminds  us  that  it  is  quite 
time  that  the  materials  for  such  an  account  should  be  col- 
lected and  preserved  if  we  are  to  keep  for  future  chroniclers  the 
facts  from  which  this  chapter  of  history  shall  at  last  be  written. 

I  should  much  like  to  write  in  full  the  whole  story  of  the 
reform  movement,  but  the  small  fraction  of  life  which  still 
remains  to  me  will  not  allow  so  extensive  an  undertaking. 
I  can,  however,  contribute  some  of  the  materials  for  the 
future  history  of  that  movement  by  recording  the  activities 
of  the  League  and  of  my  own  Indiana  Association  so  far  as 
they  have  come  under  my  personal  observation. 

The  League  was  organized  in  Newport  in  1881  and  within 
four  years  thereafter  I  was  actively  participating  in  its  efforts, 
attending  most  of  its  meetings  and  later  taking  part  in  the 
deliberations  of  the  executive  committee  and  the  council 
and  in  charge  of  many  of  its  important  investigations.  In 
this  work  I  have  been  in  touch  with  a  great  part  of  all  that  has 
been  done  and  have  been  familiarly  associated  with  the 
leaders  of  the  movement. 

The  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  has  been  singu- 
larly fortunate  in  its  leadership.  Just  as  the  Anti-Slavery 
Society  has  become  historic  largely  through  its  association 
with  such  names  as  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Wendell  Phillips, 
and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  so  the  National  Civil  Service  Re- 
form League  has  been  distinguished  by  the  names  of  George 
William  Curtis,  Carl  Schurz,  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  and  Theodore 
Roosevelt. 

The  number  of  those  engaged  in  the  movement  was  never 
very  large,  but  under  such  leadership  it  could  not  fail  to  be 
an  important  factor  in  American  political  life. 

My  interest  in  Civil  Service  Reform  was  first  aroused  in 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM  3 

1884.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  work  of  Dorman  B.  Eaton 
on  the  Civil  Service  in  Great  Britain  fell  into  my  hands.  It 
is  still  the  standard  work  on  the  subject  and  although  unne- 
cessarily diffuse  it  presents  a  wonderful  argument  in  favor  of 
the  aboHtion  of  patronage  and  the  substitution  of  competitive 
methods.  Indeed  I  thought  then,  and  I  think  still,  that  no 
other  public  issue  since  the  agitation  against  slavery  has 
been  so  clearly  and  incontestably  proved  as  Civil  Service 
Reform.  Every  other  question  has  two  sides  and  a  conclu- 
sion must  be  formed  by  balancing  the  advantages  and  dis- 
advantages of  each.  There  is  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  a 
high  tariff  or  a  low  tariff,  a  pacific  or  a  military  policy;  in 
support  of  woman's  suffrage  or  against  it;  in  favor  of  direct 
legislation  by  the  people  or  in  opposition  to  it,  and  so  with 
other  issues,  and  although  I  have  con\'ictions  in  regard  to 
these  things  I  think  I  can  understand  the  views  of  those  who 
take  the  other  side.  But  the  necessity  of  abolishing  the  evils 
which  have  accompanied  the  spoils  system  seems  so  clear  and 
the  methods  proposed  so  perfectly  adapted  to  the  purpose 
that  I  find  it  hard  to  understand  how  any  unprejudiced  mind, 
after  careful  study  of  the  subject,  can  oppose  the  competitive 
system. 

It  is  hard  for  us  to-day  to  appreciate  the  condition  of 
American  political  life  prior  to  the  passage  of  the  Pendleton 
law.  The  spoils  system  which  came  in  with  Andrew  Jackson 
had  been  growing  worse  and  worse.  Many  civil  service  re- 
formers trace  its  origin  to  the  violent  partisanship  of  that 
narrow-minded  and  strong-willed  President  or  to  the  politi- 
cians who  at  a  still  earlier  period  introduced  it  into  New 
York.  But  in  my  view  it  was  rather  a  necessary  outgrowth 
of  the  political  conditions  which  preceded  its  birth,  as  much 
so  indeed  as  the  feudalism  of  the  Middle  Ages  or  the  balance- 
of -power  statesmanship  of  modern  Europe. 

ORIGIN   AND   DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   SPOILS   SYSTEM 

In  a  popular  government  political  parties  are  a  necessity. 
The  men  who  think  alike  will  vote  together.     They  will  es- 


4  EARLY  EFFORTS  FOR  REFORM 

tablish  organizations  to  give  effect  to  their  collective  desires 
and,  once  established,  these  parties  will  struggle  hard  and 
persistently.  Washington  deprecated  party  spirit  and  fore- 
saw its  evils  but  he  could  no  more  stay  its  progress  than  he 
could  check  the  tides.  ^ -^ 

Two  great  parties  were  organized  at  an  early  day,  and  under 
different  names  and  with  changing  issues  they  have  ever 
since  struggled  with  each  other  for  mastery.  The  makers  of 
our  government  saw  this  probable  result,  but  possibly  they 
did  not  clearly  see  all  the  consequences  which  were  to  flow 
from  it,  for  they  placed  the  appointment  of  important  offices 
— department  heads,  foreign  ministers,  judges,  and  the  like — 
in  the  hands  of  the  President,  subject  to  the  "advice  and 
consent"  of  the  Senate,  and  then  provided  that  Congress 
might  vest  appointments  to  subordinate  places  in  the  Presi- 
dent, the  heads  of  the  departments,  or  the  courts  of  law. 
Congress  was  to  pass  the  act  and  then  these  officials  were  to 
choose  subordinates  at  their  discretion.  When  the  Constitu- 
tion was  adopted  and  for  many  years  afterward  that  proved 
to  be  a  workable  plan.  The  civil  service  was  then  compara- 
tively small.  Parties  had  sprung  into  being,  but  their  organi- 
zation was  rudimentary.  Their  control  over  the  Executive 
was  far  less  absolute  than  it  afterwards  became,  and  during 
the  adminstrations  of  the  earlier  Presidents  appointments, 
and,  still  more,  removals  from  office,  were  dictated  more  by 
public  considerations  than  by  mere  party  or  personal  interest, 
though  under  Jefferson  there  were  a  good  many  political 
changes.  But  the  germ  of  the  spoils  system  even  then  lay 
sleeping  under  the  existing  conditions. 

Given  party  government  on  the  one  hand  with  the  hunger 
of  partisans  for  power,  and  on  the  other  hand  discretionary 
appointments  under  the  control  of  a  President  selected  by 
party  agencies,  and  the  spoils  system  was  sure  to  follow.  It 
was  certain  that  some  President  would  be  chosen  at  some 
time  who  would  use  his  arbitrary  power  to  reward  his  sup- 
porters and  to  strengthen  the  organization  to  which  he  owed 
his  election  and  when  Andrew  Jackson  became  President, 
that  hour  arrived.     It  would    have   come    if  Jackson  had 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM  5 

never  lived.  The  politics  of  the  State  of  New  York  had  led 
the  way  in  this  sinister  development,  which,  once  established 
could  not  be  uprooted  so  long  as  appointments  remained 
discretionary. 

An  outgrowth  of  the  new  patronage  system,  equally  logical 
and  inevitable,  soon  followed.  As  soon  as  the  offices  came 
to  be  considered  the  property,  not  of  the  state  but  of  the 
successful  party — as  soon  as  there  were  spoils  to  distribute — 
there  must  be  some  method  in  the  distribution  of  these  spoils. 

The  civil  service  had  grown  so  large  that  it  became  im- 
possible for  the  President  and  heads  of  departments  to  make 
selections  upon  their  personal  knowledge.  How  should  they 
know  the  character  and  qualifications  of  the  applicants  from 
all  parts  of  this  great  country?  As  to  their  own  districts 
Congressmen  were  generally  better  informed.  Moreover  the 
President  was  dependent  on  Congress  for  appropriations  and 
for  all  other  legislation  which  he  desired.  He  was  specially 
dependent  upon  the  members  of  Congress  who  belonged  to 
his  own  party.  Upon  these  he  must  rely.  Whenever  he 
asked  a  favor  he  must  be  willing  to  grant  a  favor  and  the 
offices  at  his  disposal  were  the  readiest  fund  out  of  which  to 
pay  his  political  debts. 

"Rotation  in  office"  was  encouraged,  for  by  this  means 
there  were  more  offices  to  be  bestowed.  So  these  were  dis- 
tributed among  the  supporters  of  the  administration  in  Con- 
gress. Gradually  the  distribution  of  these  largesses  came 
to  be  made  according  to  a  sort  of  rule.  The  member  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  belonging  to  the  party  in  power 
controlled  the  places  in  his  district,  the  Senator  from  this 
party  controlled  the  appointments  in  the  State  at  large,  and 
all  had  an  "equitable  share"  in  general  appointments  from 
the  nation,  from  consulships  and  foreign  missions  to  clerk- 
ships in  the  departments.  Bear  in  mind,  these  appointments 
were  not  given  to  all  Congressmen,  it  was  only  the  adherents 
of  the  party  in  power  who  were  thus  favored,  and  even  among 
these  adherents  those  who  were  refractory  and  would  not 
conform  to  the  wishes  of  the  administration  were  often 
excluded. 


6  EARLY  EFFORTS  FOR  REFORM 

In  districts  where  the  Representative  was  in  opposition, 
there  the  Senator  controlled  the  patronage,  and  where  there 
was  neither  Senator  nor  Representative,  some  influential 
party  manager,  perhaps  the  defeated  candidate  for  Senator 
or  Representative,  had  the  selection.  The  primary  question 
was,  how  much  political  or  personal  service  could  the  man 
render  who  controlled  or  who  received  the  appointment. 

This  involved  both  bad  men  and  bad  discipline  as  well  as 
the  paralysis  of  Congress  and  of  the  higher  executive  officers 
in  the  performance  of  their  really  important  duties. 

But  the  most  disastrous  effect  of  the  spoils  system  was 
not  upon  the  civil  service  itself  but  upon  the  people.  Stich 
is  the  vitality  of  republican  institutions  that  they  could  live 
and  thrive  if  the  service  were  twice  as  bad  as  it  then  was 
and  cost  twice  as  much  but  they  could  not  live  and  thrive 
if  either  popular  elections  or  the  nominations  which  led  to 
these  elections  were  controlled  by  the  personal  and  venal 
motives  which  the  spoils  system  directly  encouraged. 

Lincoln  in  the  crisis  of  a  great  war  had  no  time  to  devote 
to  its  overthrow,  but  he  realized  very  clearly  the  disasters  it 
portended.  Once  pointing  out  to  a  friend  the  eager  multitude 
of  office-seekers  which  thronged  the  White  House  he  said: 
"There  you  see  something  which  in  course  of  time  will  be- 
come a  greater  danger  to  the  Republic  than  the  rebellion  it- 
self." And  once  to  Carl  Schurz  he  observed:  "I  am  afraid 
this  thing  is  going  to  ruin  republican  government." 

Under  Andrew  Johnson  the  "bread  and  butter  brigade" 
of  officeholders  who  held  a  separate  convention  to  sustain  his 
administration  was  the  object  of  general  ridicule  and  the  pro- 
scription of  all  those  who  would  not  support  the  President  in 
his  struggle  wdth  Congress  brought  the  civil  service  of  the 
country  to  the  lowest  depths  of  degradation.  But  it  was  in 
the  midst  of  this  degradation  that  the  first  systematic  effort 
for  reform  was  made.  The  national  movement  in  favor  of 
appointments  by  means  of  competitive  examinations  was 
begun  by  a  bill  introduced  in  the  Senate  by  Charles  Svimner, 
in  1864,  followed  by  another  by  Mr.  Thomas  Allen  Jenckes, 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  in  1867,  and  an 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM  7 

elaborate  report  discussing  the  civil  service  systems  of  other 
countries.  Early  in  the  administration  of  President  Grant 
an  attempt  was  made  to  remedy  the  evil  of  patronage.  By  a 
law  passed  March  3,  1871,  the  President  was  authorized  to 
prescribe  such  regulations  for  admission  into  the  civil  service 
as  would  best  promote  the  eflBciency  thereof  and  ascertain 
the  fitness  of  each  candidate  and  he  might  employ  suitable 
persons  to  conduct  such  enquiries  and  prescribe  their  duties 
and  establish  regulations  for  the  conduct  of  the  appointees. 
He  appointed  an  advisory  board  of  seven  persons  with  George 
Wm.  Ctirtis  at  its  head^  which  undertook  to  establish  rules  for 
competitive  examinations,  but  Congress  refused  an  appropria- 
tion, the  enterprise  broke  down,  and  the  distribution  of  spoils 
under  President  Grant  was  as  great  as  under  any  of  his 
predecessors. 

Under  President  Hayes,  Mr.  Carl  Schurz,  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  instituted  competitive  examinations  in  his  depart- 
ment, and  similar  examinations  were  established  in  the 
New  York  Custom  House  and  Post  Office.  It  was  also  during 
this  administration  that  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  by  the  President's 
authority,  went  to  England,  and  investigated  the  Civil  Ser- 
vice of  Great  Britain,  making  a  report  which  was  afterward 
published  as  a  treatise  and  became  the  standard  work  upon 
the  subject  as  above  stated. 

The  assassination  of  President  Garfield,  in  188 1,  by  a  dis- 
appointed office  seeker,  was  an  impressive  object  lesson  of  the 
need  for  the  overthrow  of  the  spoils  system. 

In  1880,  George  H.  Pendleton,  a  Democratic  senator  from 
Ohio,  had  introduced  a  bill  for  the  reform  of  the  civil  service. 
The  bill  was  in  many  respects  incomplete,  and  a  committee 
of  the  New  York  Civil  Service  Reform  Association  set  to 
work  to  prepare  a  substitute.  Dorman  B.  Eaton  drafted  it, 
George  Wm.  Curtis,  Silas  W.  Burt,  Orlando  B.  Potter,  and 
Everett  P.  Wheeler  revised  it,  while  Carl  Schurz  and  Wayne 
McVeagh  aided  by  their  counsels.  The  substitute  was  intro- 
duced by  Mr.  Pendleton  in  JantLSiTy,  1881.     A  general  con- 

*  Mr.  Curtis  was  succeeded  by  Dorman  B.  Eaton  in  1873. 


8  EARLY  EFFORTS  FOR  REFORM 

ference  of  civil  service  associations  assembled  at  Newport 
on  August  nth  of  that  year,  formed  the  National  Civil  Ser- 
vice Reform  League,  and  earnestly  advocated  the  measure. 
It  was  again  introduced  December  6,  1881,  and  on  the  reform 
wave  which  then  swept  over  Congress  it  passed  both  houses, 
a  majority  of  members  of  both  parties  voting  for  it,  and  it 
was  approved  by  President  Arthur,  January  16,  1883.  It 
created  a  federal  Civil  Service  Commission  and  introduced 
competitive  examinations.  Dorman  B.  Eaton  was  appointed 
President  of  the  first  Commission. 

Mr.  George  Wm.  Curtis  thus  accurately  described  the 
conditions  which  prevailed  prior  to  the  passage  of  this  law. 

Every  four  years  [he  said]  the  whole  machinery  of  the  government  is 
pulled  to  pieces.  The  country  presents  a  most  ridiculous,  revolting,  and 
disheartening  spectacle.  The  business  of  the  nation  and  the  legislation 
of  Congress  are  subordinated  to  the  distribution  of  plimder  among  eager 
partisans.  President,  secretaries,  senators,  representatives  are  dogged, 
hunted,  besieged,  besought,  denounced,  and  they  become  mere  office 
brokers.  .  .  .  The  country  seethes  with  intrigue  and  corruption.  .  .  . 
Economy,  patriotism,  honesty,  honor,  seem  to  have  become  words  of  no 
meaning. 

NATURE  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE   SYSTEM 

It  may  be  interesting  to  consider  for  the  moment  the  essen- 
tial character  of  the  system  introduced  by  the  Pendleton  law. 
To  what  class  of  reforms  did  it  belong?  The  remedies  against 
corruption  may  appropriately  be  divided  into  three  principal 
classes.  We  have  first,  penal  legislation,  second,  appeals  to 
the  moral  sense  of  the  people  or  the  creation  of  a  sound  public 
sentiment,  third,  devices  for  the  removal  of  temptation. 

I  St.  Penal  legislation  is  necessary  to  correct  certain 
flagrant  crimes  of  the  graver  sort,  but  it  is  rarely  useful 
anywhere  else;  there  is  little  certainty  of  punishment,  and  to 
be  effective  it  must  be  sustained  by  the  moral  power  of  the 
community.  Where  public  sentiment  condones  an  offense, 
punishment  is  rarely  possible.  We  see  this  in  the  failure  of 
the  laws  regulating  the  liquor  traffic.     It  is  only  the  most 


NATURE  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE  SYSTEM        9 

flagrant  cases  of  bribery,  embezzlement,  or  fraud  which  we 
can  hope  to  reach  by  means  of  punishment. 

2d.  An  appeal  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  community  for 
the  upbuilding  of  character,  the  development  of  civic  vii  tue, 
and  the  creation  of  a  healthy  public  sentiment  is  certainly 
the  most  desirable,  final,  and  effective  remedy,  but  this  is  too 
often  immediately  unattainable.  For  nearly  two  thousand 
years,  the  churches  have  been  exhorting  men  to  be  good, 
unselfish,  patriotic,  to  lead  purer  lives,  to  perform  their  duties 
to  the  State  as  well  as  to  their  Maker,  and  yet  to-day  in  spite 
of  these  appeals,  crime  is  prevalent  and  the  seeds  of  vice  are 
still  sown  broadcast  over  the  land. 

3d.  To  take  away  the  incentive  to  corruption,  to  remove 
the  jewels  from  the  sight  of  those  who  covet  them,  wherever 
that  can  be  done,  is  more  effective  than  punishment  or  exhor- 
tation. It  is  the  application  to  our  political  institutions  of 
the  words  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  ''Lead  us  not  into  temptation." 
Where  temptation  has  begotten  corruption  the  withdrawal 
of  temptation  will  lessen  or  perhaps  eliminate  it. 

Any  contrivance  which  will  accomplish  this  is  sure  to  be 
more  or  less  effective.  Take  for  instance  the  Australian 
ballot  law.  The  evil  to  be  remedied  was  twofold:  ist,  the 
purchase  of  votes,  and  2d,  coercion  such  as  that  exercised  by 
the  emploj'-ers  of  labor  over  the  men  employed.  Where  the 
purchaser  or  employer  could  not  tell  how  the  vote  was  cast 
for  which  he  had  paid  his  money,  or  which  he  sought  to  coerce, 
the  temptation  to  buy  or  to  force  men  to  vote  in  any  given 
way  was  largely  removed,  and  so  far  as  the  Australian  ballot 
is  really  a  secret  ballot,  it  has  measurably  accomplished  its 
purpose.  There  are  subterfuges  by  which  it  may  still  be 
evaded;  the  machinery  is  not  perfect,  but  the  principle  upon 
which  the  law  is  founded  is  unquestionably  sound. 

Now  this  is  the  principle  which  underlies  civil  service  re- 
form, and  the  competitive  system  furnishes,  in  my  judgment, 
a  far  more  effective  kind  of  machinery  than  the  Australian 
ballot  law.  What  is  the  object  of  this  reform?  The  great 
purpose  of  it  is  not  so  much  to  provide  an  efficient  civil  ser- 
vice (although  it  does  this)  as  to  remove  the  temptation  to 


lo  EARLY  EFFORTS  FOR  REFORM 

use  the  offices  of  the  government  for  personal  or  party  ends, 
in  other  words,  to  remove  the  incentive  to  that  kind  of  po- 
litical corruption  which  is  nourished  by  the  hope  of  office. 
It  does  this  by  something  akin  to  a  mechanical  contrivance, 
making  it  automatically  impossible  for  the  politician  seeking 
the  control  of  patronage  to  appoint  the  particular  man  he 
wants.  It  was  the  concurrence  of  personal  discretion  with 
party  government  which  brought  in  the  spoils  system,  and 
niles  requiring  appointments  by  competitive  examinations 
destroy  this  personal  discretion.  The  Pendleton  bill  pro- 
vided the  appropriate  machinery  for  this  purpose  and  the 
development  of  the  system  was  left  largely  to  the  President 
and  to  the  Civil  Service  Commissioners  who  were  his  advisers 
in  regard  to  the  application  of  the  law. 

THE  BLAINE  CAMPAIGN 

The  year  after  the  Pendleton  bill  became  a  law,  Mr.  Blaine 
was  nominated  by  the  Republicans  for  the  Presidency. 
Serious  scandals  had  been  connected  with  his  name.  The 
Democrats,  on  the  other  hand,  had  nominated  Grover  Cleve- 
land, who  had  made  a  creditable  record  as  the  reform  governor 
of  New  York. 

At  this  time  I  represented  the  county  of  Wayne  in  the 
Indiana  State  Senate,  having  been  elected  in  1882  for  a  term 
of  four  years.  I  was  a  Republican  and  had  taken  an  active 
part  in  the  previous  session  of  the  legislature,  but  I  was  deeply 
impressed  with  the  charges  made  against  Mr.  Blaine,  sup- 
ported apparently  by  his  own  letters  and  by  his  evasive  expla- 
nations and  denials.  I  was,  therefore,  unwilling  to  vote  for 
him  or  to  take  any  part  in  the  campaign,  but  I  was  still  too 
strong  a  Republican  to  support  the  Democratic  candidate, 
and  thus  break  all  my  associations  with  a  party  to  which  I 
had  been  devoted  and  which  I  was  then  representing  in  the 
State  Senate. 

The  Republican  platform  promised  all  that  could  be  desired 
on  behalf  of  the  competitive  system  and  Mr.  Blaine  expressed 
himself  in  the  clearest  manner  as  favoring  this  reform.     But 


THE  BLAINE  CAMPAIGN  ii 

he  was  deeply  distrusted  while  Mr.  Cleveland,  whose 
platform  and.  promises  were  less  explicit,  had  made  an 
excellent  record  as  governor  of  New  York  and  was  sup- 
ported by  perhaps  the  greater  number  of  the  advocates  of 
the  reform. 

My  refusal  to  vote  for  Mr.  Blaine  aroused  intense  indigna- 
tion. I  was  represented  as  seizing  the  ballot  from  the  elec- 
tion officer,  throwing  it  upon  the  floor,  stamping  on  it,  and 
uttering  furious  maledictions  on  the  party  which  had  honored 
me  by  electing  me  to  the  Senate.  I  was  hooted  and  jeered 
at  as  I  rode  through  the  streets  to  my  office  and  on  one  occa- 
sion a  crowd  of  men  and  boys  assembled  with  the  intention  of 
marching  out  to  my  house  east  of  town,  breaking  the  win- 
dows, defacing  the  walls,  and  making  unseemly  observations 
regarding  the  occupant  of  the  premises.  From  this,  however, 
they  were  dissuaded  through  the  counsels  of  an  old  friend 
of  mine  whose  stalwart  Republicanism  could  not  be 
suspected  by  anyone  in  this  patriotic  gathering.  A  peti- 
tion was  started  asking  for  my  resignation  as  senator 
and  I  believe  a  good  many  signatures  were  attached  to 
it,  but  somehow  the  project  fell  still-born  and  the  petition 
was  never  presented.  By  the  time  the  Legislature  had 
convened  much  of  this  effervescence  of  wrath  had  passed 
away  and  I  found  myself  welcomed  by  my  old  associates  as 
well  as  by  the  new  Republican  members  of  the  Senate  with 
cordiality. 

There  were  only  seventeen  Republicans  all  told  in  the 
Senate  of  1885,  barely  more  than  one  third. 

This  Republican  minority  was  a  pretty  creditable  body  of 
men.  There  was  not  one  of  them  whom  I  ever  suspected  of 
personal  corruption.  We  worked  together  in  great  harmony 
on  nearly  every  subject  and  in  entire  good  will  in  every- 
thing. 

The  Democratic  members  were  also  cordial,  especially  so 
because  I  had  not  voted  for  Blaine.  They  placed  me  upon 
important  committees  and  even  singled  me  out  for  a  chair- 
manship, but  I  did  not  care  to  be  the  only  Republican  thus 
honored  and  I  therefore  declined. 


12  EARLY  EFFORTS  FOR  REFORM 

THE   INDIANA  CIVIL   SERVICE   BILL 

'*!  introduced  as  the  first  measure  of  the  session  and  on  the 
very  first  day  "A  Bill  to  Regulate  and  Improve  the  Civil 
Service  of  the  State  of  Indiana,"  a  measure  similar  to  the 
federal  civil  service  law,  although  I  knew  that  my  bill  had 
very  little  chance  of  passing. 

The  judiciary  committee  reported  against  it  and  the  bill 
was  made  a  special  order.  I  addressed  the  Senate  on  the 
subject  at  length,  setting  forth  as  fully  as  possible  the  advan- 
tages of  the  competitive  system  and  urging  its  adoption. 
Quite  a  large  audience  had  gathered  in  the  Senate  chamber 
on  this  occasion  as  the  subject  excited  general  interest.' 

Among  the  auditors  was  the  Vice-President  elect,  Hon. 
Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  who  had  been  chosen  on  the  same 
ticket  with  Mr.  Cleveland  but  who  was  not  at  all  in  favor  of 
this  "schoolmaster's  plan"  as  he  called  it,  and  who  probably 
came  out  of  ctiriosity  to  see  what  could  be  said  in  favor  of 
such  an  impracticable  scheme.  The  Democrats  in  the 
Senate  never  intended  to  allow  the  bill  to  pass  but  some  of 
them  were  willing  to  give  me  the  compliment  of  supporting 
it  upon  the  second  reading  and  it  was  ordered  engrossed  by  a 
vote  of  twenty-four  to  eighteen.  A  week  later  when  it  came 
up  for  final  passage  a  number  of  these  votes  were  changed 
and  it  failed.  One  of  its  opponents  declared  that  he  was  in 
favor  of  civil  service  reform  but  desired  it  to  be  made  appli- 
cable to  Democrats  only!  Another  declared  that  it  was 
only  Republicans  who  needed  such  reform  and  that  inasmuch 
as  the  Democrats  were  in  control  it  was  qmte  useless.  Such 
was  the  variegated  wisdom  of  those  who  enacted  the  laws 
of  Indiana. 

LUCIUS   B.    SWIFT 

It  was  during  this  session  that  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Lucius  B.  Swift.  He  was  present  with  his  wife  when  I  spoke 
in  favor  of  this  civil  service  law.  He  was  a  few  years  my  elder, 
a  sturdy,  rugged  man  who  had  been  a  private  in  the  Civil 

» This  address  appears  in  Appendix  I. 


LUCIUS  B.  SIVIFT  13 

War  (of  which  fact  he  so  seldom  spoke  that  hardly  anyone 
knew  of  it).  He  was  at  this  time  practicing  law  in  Indian- 
apolis. The  close  friendship  which  we  formed  has  continued 
uninterrupted  ever  since.  Our  political  views  have  been 
remarkably  similar.  We  were  both  mugwtunps,  but  were  so 
dissatisfied  with  Cleveland's  removal  of  officeholders  upon 
secret  charges  and  his  partisan  administration  of  the  civil 
service  in  Indiana  that  we  supported  Harrison  at  the  next 
election.  But  Harrison  disappointed  us  still  more.  He  too 
made  removals  upon  secret  charges  and  delivered  the  im- 
classified  service  almost  bodily  into  the  hands  of  spoilsmen, 
so  after  four  years  of  Harrison  we  decided  that  Cleveland 
was  the  better  man  of  the  two. 

It  was  during  this  period  that  the  New  York  Sun  gave  a 
htmiorous  description  of  what  it  called  a  convention  of  the 
mugwimip  party  in  Indiana  which  was  held  when  Swift 
called  up  Foulke  over  the  telephone  and  they  decided  upon 
the  resolutions  and  candidates.  In  point  of  fact  it  was  a 
good  deal  that  way.  There  were  hardly  more  than  a  dozen 
of  us  all  told  but  we  made  as  much  noise  as  the  two  wolves 
described  by  General  Grant  in  his  memoirs  whom  he  com- 
pared with  dissatisfied  politicians.  Yet  we  were  very  far 
from  being  politicians,  and  our  dissatisfaction  was  based 
upon  shortcomings  which  still  appear  to  me  in  retrospect 
to  have  had  a  sound  basis. 

We  both  supported  McKinley  against  Bryan,  yet  we  pro- 
tested earnestly  when  McKinley  removed  several  thousand 
places  from  the  protection  of  the  civil  service  rules.  We 
have  both  always  been  devoted  friends  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  and 
his  policies.  We  were  both  in  favor  of  the  nomination  and 
election  of  Taft  yet  greatly  disappointed  at  what  seemed  to 
us  his  failure  to  carry  out  the  policies  of  his  predecessor.  We 
were  both  afterwards  active  in  the  Progressive  party  in  the 
convention  of  191 2,  Mr.  Swift  as  chairman  of  the  Indiana 
delegation  and  I  as  member  of  the  resolutions  committee, 
and  four  years  later  we  both  belonged  to  that  branch  of  the 
remnant  of  the  Progressive  party  which  supported  Mr. 
Hughes.     In  looking  back  upon  this  somewhat  variegated 


14  E/iRLY  EFFORTS  FOR  REFORM 

assortment  of  political  views  our  concurrence  has  seemed 
to  me  the  more  remarkable  since  neither  of  us  was  much 
inclined  to  be  guided  by  the  opinions  of  anybody  else  and 
each  of  us  was  perhaps  a  little  obstinate  in  maintaining  his 
own  peculiar  notions. 

NATIONAL  CIVIL   SERVICE   REFORM   LEAGUE  AND   INDIANA 
ASSOCIATION 

It  was  in  1885  that  I  began  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the 
National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  which  at  this  time 
were  held  in  the  summer  at  Newport  and  at  which  George 
William  Curtis,  the  president,  delivered  the  annual  addresses. 
I  can  recall  very  vividly  some  of  these  early  meetings, 
especially  one  where  Mr.  Curtis  called  upon  the  Maryland 
Association  for  a  report  of  its  doings  and  a  young  man  whom 
I  had  not  known  before  but  who  bore  the  not  unfamiliar  name 
of  Bonaparte  rose  to  reply.  The  Maryland  Association,  he 
said,  had  been  eminently  successful  in  only  one  thing,  and  that 
was  in  making  a  great  nuisance  of  itself  to  pretty  much  every- 
body. I  have  no  doubt  that  was  true,  especially  to  those 
politicians,  Gorman,  Rasin,  and  the  other  worthies  of  Balti- 
more, who  formed  the  ruling  dynasty.  It  was  on  that  occasion 
that  my  acquaintance  and  friendship  with  Mr.  Bonaparte 
began.  The  civil  service  reformers  of  Indiana  and  Mary- 
land were  companions  in  tribulation,  and,  at  that  period, 
to  make  a  nuisance  of  ourselves  was  our  first  duty  to  mankind. 
We  did  our  best  at  it  in  Indiana  though  for  a  long  time  our 
outcries  fell  upon  deaf  ears.  These  were  seasons  of  great 
famine  in  the  crop  of  converts.  The  sentiment  in  favor  of 
the  merit  system  found  scanty  nutriment  in  the  pubHc  opin- 
ion of  a  community  violently  partisan  and  thoroughly  com- 
mitted to  spoils,  a  community  where  a  mugwump  was  as 
rare  as  a  dodo  and  a  reformer  as  unpopular  as  a  Chinaman. 

Now  how  different  it  all  is!  Hardly  anyone  says  he  is 
against  civil  service  reform.  It  would  be  like  saying  he  was 
against  the  Rule  of  Three  or  the  Copernican  System  or  that 
he  was  opposed  to  religious  liberty.     He  has  to  keep  such 


NATIONAL  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM  LEAGUE  15 

obsolete  doctrines  to  himself.  But  many  a  man  is  in  favor 
of  the  law  but  greatly  opposed  to  its  application.  He  doesn't 
want  to  see  a  good  thing  run  into  the  ground.  There  ought 
to  be  exceptions  and  his  case  is  one  of  them,  etc.,  etc. 

In  1885,  the  Indiana  Civil  Service  Reform  Association  was 
organized,  very  largely  through  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Swift  and 
myself  together  with  Oliver  T.  Morton,  the  son  of  the  war 
governor  of  Indiana,  and  Louis  Rowland,  then  the  editor  of  a 
low  tariff  and  civil  service  reform  periodical  called  The  Free- 
man and  now  editor  of  the  Indianapolis  News. 

I  was  made  the  president  of  the  new  organization  and 
continued  to  hold  that  office  for  four  or  five  years  when  I 
was  succeeded  by  Mr.  Swift  who  has  ever  since  remained  its 
head.  Our  nimibers  were  not  large;  we  held  our  annual 
meetings  in  one  of  the  rooms  of  Plymouth  Church  in  Indian- 
apolis and  our  work  was  mainly  done  through  the  executive 
committee  and  special  committees  appointed  to  make  in- 
vestigations. But  there  was  finally  developed  a  widespread 
public  interest  in  the  result  of  our  work  and  abundant  space 
was  soon  accorded  to  us  in  the  newspapers  of  the  State.  The 
most  important  investigations  made  by  our  association  were: 
first,  into  the  abuses  at  the  Indiana  Hospital  for  the  Insane 
at  Indianapolis;  second,  into  the  system  of  removal  of  post- 
masters upon  secret  charges  under  Mr.  Cleveland;  and  third, 
into  the  administration  of  the  civil  service  in  the  post  offices 
and  other  federal  places  in  Indiana. 

In  considering  the  investigation  of  the  Indiana  Hospital 
I  must  go  back  two  years  in  my  story. 


CHAPTER  II 

INVESTIGATION    OF    THE    INDIANA   HOSPITAL    FOR    THE    INSANE 

As  I  sat  in  the  State  Senate  at  the  opening  of  the  session 
of  1883  the  first  bill  introduced  for  our  consideration  was  for 
the  regulation  of  the  three  principal  benevolent  institutions 
of  the  State:  the  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  the  Asylum  for  the 
Blind,  and  the  Asylum  for  the  Deaf  and  Dumb.  This  bill 
provided  for  a  board  of  trustees  of  three  members  for  each 
of  these  institutions,  one  man  to  act  as  president  of  all  three 
of  the  boards.  The  members  were  to  be  elected  by  the 
General  Assembly  in  joint  session. 

I  was  at  that  time  entirely  inexperienced  in  legislative  work 
and  I  could  not  quite  see  the  drift  of  this  proposed  legislation 
nor  understand  the  intense  feeling  on  both  sides  of  the  Senate 
Chamber  when  the  bill  was  read.  The  Democrats  were  in 
a  large  majority  and  the  bill  was  introduced  by  the  Democratic 
leader,  Senator  Jason  Brown  (or  as  he  was  generally  called 
"Bazoo  Brown")-  He  was  a  party  boss,  a  man  with  a  reso- 
lute and  rather  brutal  face — a  man  of  singular  eloquence  and 
really  fine  diction,  one  of  the  most  successful  criminal  lawyers 
in  the  State,  unscrupulous  and  supposed  to  be  even  venal  in 
his  political  transactions  but  genial  and  popular  among  his 
friends;  a  man  of  loose  life  and  often  intemperate.  The 
bill  was  named  after  him  "The  Brown  Bill."  s> 

It  was  explained  to  me  by  those  better  intitiated  that  its 
object  was  to  turn  over  the  benevolent  institutions  to  Demo- 
cratic politicians  to  be  adm-inistered  for  the  benefit  of  the 
party  rather  than  of  the  inmates  or  the  public.  I  belonged 
to  the  Republican  minority  and  was  not  in  the  inner  circle 
of  those  who  knew  the  details  of  the  scheme  but  we  could 

16 


INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL  17 

see  two  men  of  sinister  omen  constantly  in  the  lobbies  and 
in  the  aisles  of  the  Senate  who  were  doing  a  lot  of  work  in 
buttonholing  the  Democratic  members  and  holding  whispered 
consultations  with  them.  One  of  these  was  a  big  burly 
vulgar  looking  man  whom  I  afterwards  learned  was  Dr. 
Thomas  H.  Harrison  of  Boone  County.  The  other  was  a 
thin,  pale,  cadaverous  person  more  nearly  of  the  Uriah  Heep 
variety,  whom  I  ascertained  was  Philip  M.  Gapen.  These 
men  with  a  number  of  confederates  of  lesser  note  kept  up  a 
constant  agitation  in  the  lobby  on  behalf  of  the  bill. 

We  Republicans  did  our  best  to  oppose  it,  but  of  course  it 
passed,  and  in  joint  session  of  the  two  houses  of  the  Legisla- 
ture Dr.  Harrison  was  elected  president  of  the  three  boards 
while  Gapen  and  one  B.  H.  Burr  ell  were  elected  the  re- 
maining trustees  for  the  Indiana  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  an 
institution  containing  1566  patients  and  employing  some  336 
caretakers. 

The  Board  of  Trustees  were  to  elect  a  superintendent  of 
the  hospital  and  they  chose  Dr.  Wm.  B.  Fletcher,  a  well-known 
physician  of  Indianapolis,  who  had  also  been  a  prominent 
Democrat.  He  was  a  member  of  the  State  Senate  in  the  fol- 
lowing session  of  1885  where  I  served  with  him.  Although 
a  strong  partisan  he  was  a  man  of  himiane  disposition  and  of 
high  professional  attainments. 

In  1885  and  1886  there  were  rumors  of  very  serious  abuses 
at  the  hospital  but  nothing  very  definite  was  known  until 
sometime  during  the  spring  or  summer  of  the  latter  year. 
Dr.  Fletcher,  in  view  of  my  interest  in  civil  service  reform,  came 
to  me  and  asked  if  something  could  not  be  done  to  remedy 
the  deplorable  conditions  in  that  institution.  He  was  not  in  a 
position,  he  said,  to  take  the  initiative  himself,  being  a  sub- 
ordinate of  the  trustees  who  were  administering  the  hospital 
as  a  vast  political  machine  for  the  benefit  of  themselves  and 
their  political  associates. 

I  was  at  that  time  president  of  the  Indiana  Civil  Service 
Reform  Association  and  suggested  that  an  investigation  by 
that  body  might  reveal  these  abuses  to  the  public.  Accord- 
ingly our  executive  committee  appointed  Oliver  T.  Morton, 


i8  INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

Louis  Howland,  and  myself  as  a  committee  of  investigation, 
and  we  soon  went  to  work  with  a  will.  Legally  we  had  no 
powers  at  all  beyond  those  of  ordinary  citizens.  We  had  no 
right  to  subpoena  witnesses  or  administer  oaths  or  require 
the  production  of  documents,  but  we  believed  that. a  good 
deal  could  be  found  out  even  without  authority  and  the 
event  proved  that  we  were  right.  We  put  in  considerable 
time  during  the  hottest  part  of  the  summer  in  our  enquiries. 
I  remember  trudging  out  with  Mr.  Morton  to  the  hospital 
one  broiling  day  in  August  to  inspect  the  books  and  the  sup- 
plies. We  were  unwelcome  visitors  to  everybody  except  Dr. 
Fletcher  and  he  was  not  in  a  position  to  disclose  his  sympathy 
with  our  proceedings. 

We  examined  the  minute  books  of  the  Board,  the  bids  for 
supplies  and  other  accounts,  and  we  talked  with  a  number 
of  employees,  who,  however,  were  extremely  reticent.  We 
also  interviewed  a  number  of  discharged  patients,  visitors, 
and  others  who  had  seen  various  acts  of  cruelty.  We  also 
conferred  with  contractors  and  bidders  for  supplies  and  by 
these  means  we  finally  unearthed  a  mass  of  testimony  show- 
ing a  shocking  condition  of  affairs.  Places  were  given  entirel}'^ 
for  political  reasons.  Democrats  only  received  appointments 
and  votes  for  the  Brown  Bill  had  been  obtained  by  promises 
to  appoint  great  numbers  of  friends  of  the  legislators  to  posi- 
tions in  the  hospital.  One  senator  alone  secured  places  for 
a  daughter,  a  nephew,  three  nieces,  and  a  number  of  friends 
and  henchmen.  Letters  were  written  by  direction  of  the 
Board  to  various  members  of  the  Legislature  asking  them  to 
send  persons  to  the  asylum  for  appointment.  Boone  County, 
the  residence  of  Dr.  Harrison,  had  many  employees. 

There  were  no  examinations  or  tests  of  any  kind  to  ascer- 
tain the  fitness  of  those  employed  nor  apparently  were  any 
enquiries  made  upon  that  subject.  But  the  employees  were 
active  political  workers.  Subscriptions  were  circulated  among 
them  and  funds  collected  for  campaign  and  other  political 
purposes.  Thus  money  was  raised  to  prosecute  the  Demo- 
cratic campaign  in  Dr.  Harrison's  county  of  Boone. 

The  politics  of  the  township  where  the  institution  was 


INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL  19 

situated  was  controlled  almost  wholly  by  these  employees 
and  on  the  day  of  a  Congressional  convention  in  Indianapolis 
the  hospital  was  almost  deserted.  Additional  places  were 
made  for  political  workers  until  it  took  two  or  three  men  to  do 
the  work  of  one.  Most  of  the  men  who  furnished  supplies 
were  also  prominent  Democratic  politicians. 

The  results  were  such  as  might  have  been  expected.  Care- 
less and  unbusinesslike  methods  prevailed  with  corruption, 
inefficiency,  and  constantly  recurring  cases  of  neglect  and  cru- 
elty toward  the  unfortunate  patients.  The  minutes  showed 
that  Trustee  Gapen  had  been  absent  nearly  a  year,  running 
a  sawmill  in  Arkansas  but  still  drawing  his  salary.  No 
by-laws  were  adopted  for  nearly  three  years  after  the  Board 
began  its  work.  Of  the  336  employees  more  than  foiu: 
fifths  were  changed.  A  certain  few  among  the  bidders  were 
always  successful.  J.  E.  Sullivan,  Democratic  candidate  for 
clerk  of  Marion  County,  was  the  principal  furnisher  of  sup- 
plies for  the  tables.  Sullivan  had  presented  a  bill  for  butter 
to  a  former  board  of  trustees  but  $476.25  was  disallowed, 
because  the  alleged  butter  was  found  to  be  oleomargarine, 
whereupon  Sullivan  waged  political  war  upon  the  old  board, 
lobbied  for  the  Brown  Bill,  gave  a  dinner  to  his  friends  in 
honor  of  its  passage,  presented  his  claim  again,  and  it  was 
allowed. 

He  had  made  a  bid  to  furnish  creamery  butter  at  twenty- 
five  cents  a  pound,  and  had  furnished  an  article  which  could 
be  bought  at  six  and  eight  cents  a  pound,  which,  however, 
was  accepted.  When  winter  came  he  began  to  supply  but- 
terine,  which  was  also  received  by  the  storekeeper,  who 
said  he  did  not  care  "so  long  as  they  did  not  kick  in  the 
wards." 

In  May,  1885,  the  superintendent  reported  to  the  Board 
that  he  had  bought  produce  elsewhere  at  nearly  one  half  less 
than  the  lowest  bid  offered  and  that  the  eggs  and  poultry 
were  better  than  any  ever  used  in  the  hospital,  yet  the  Board 
continued  to  give  Sullivan  the  contracts  and  he  was  paid  at 
his  own  price.  As  a  consequence  other  bidders  refused  to 
compete. 


20  INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

On  one  occasion,  when  our  committee  visited  the  hospital, 
butter  infested  with  maggots  was  concealed  in  the  sewer 
beneath  the  storeroom  to  avoid  inspection. 

Mr.  Hall,  the  book  and  store  keeper,  an  active  politician  who 
had  lobbied  for  the  Brown  Bill,  did  not  keep  the  books  at  all 
but  others  kept  them  for  him  and  as  storekeeper  he  did  not 
receive  and  inspect  the  goods  purchased.  A  protest  against 
this,  made  by  a  former  trustee,  was  disregarded  and  the 
trustee  who  made  it  soon  ceased  to  be  a  member  of  the  Board. 

It  further  appeared  that  a  rebate  of  S64.77  which  had  been 
sent  to  Mr.  Gapen,  one  of  the  trustees,  was  never  accounted 
for. 

Of  over  six  hundred  hogs  purchased,  more  than  half  died. 
One  lot  was  apparently  "death  stricken"  when  delivered 
at  the  hospital.  The  animals  began  to  die  rapidly  and  at 
the  same  time  slaughtering  went  on  for  the  tables.  "It  was 
neck-and-neck  between  disease  and  the  butcher's  knife." 

The  character  of  the  attendants  procured  by  this  political 
system  was  so  bad  that  acts  of  neglect  and  cruelty  were  fre- 
quent. Visitors  to  the  asylum  saw  patients  slapped  severely, 
struck  with  the  fist,  shaken,  kicked,  dragged  by  the  neck,  and 
teased  both  by  attendants  and  by  their  fellow  patients  in  the 
presence  of  attendants  who  did  not  interfere.  The  super- 
intendent. Dr.  Fletcher,  wrote  to  the  Board  that  owing  to 
the  large  number  of  complaints  of  cruelty  he  had  introduced 
the  system  of  having  upon  each  ward  a  man  and  his  wife. 

We  reported  the  foregoing  facts  to  our  Association  on 
September  10,  1886,  and  the  report  was  published.  It  thus 
concluded : 

The  mismanagement  of  the  asylum — a  peculiarly  great  evil,  considering 
the  character  of  the  institution — ^lies  in  that  abominable  system  by  which 
the  welfare  of  the  imfortunate  beings  for  whom  the  benevolence  was 
created,  is  made  a  secondary  consideration  to  some  supposed  party  ad- 
vantage or  political  necessity,  and  no  permanent  improvement  can  be 
looked  for  while  this  continues  to  be  the  case. 

The  obvious  remedy  for  abuses  connected  with  this  institution  is  the 
enactment  of  a  law  by  the  General  Assembly  providing  for  competitive 
tests  of  fitness,  to  be  applied  to  all  persons  seeking  employment  in  the 
asylum,  followed  by  a  suitable  probation,  prohibiting  appointments  or 


INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL  21 

removals  for  political  reasons,  and  placing  the  administration  of  this 
hospital,  as  well  as  the  other  benevolent  institutions  of  this  State,  in  the 
hands  of  non-partisan  boards  of  trustees. 

This  report  was  called  by  the  Sentinel,  the  Democratic 
organ,  "a  batch  of  old  campaign  charges  revived."  It  was 
at  first  declared  to  be  a  tissue  of  lies  to  which  no  attention 
need  be  paid.  But  from  every  quarter  of  the  State  came  anx- 
ious enquiries  and  angry  remonstrances  and  it  was  found  that 
something  more  had  to  be  done.  Dr.  Harrison  accordingly 
prepared  an  answer  which  was  published  in  the  Sentinel  on 
September  23d,  under  the  headlines:  "A  Complete  Defense. 
President  Harrison  of  the  Benevolent  Institutions  Refutes 
the  Republican  Slanders."  After  insisting  that  our  report 
had  been  made  for  political  purposes,  he  said: 

They  say  the  management  is  partisan,  to  which  charge  we  plead  guilty. 
//  there  is  a  Republican  voter  in  the  employ  of  the  hospital  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees does  not  know  it.  We  know  there  are  competent  Democrats  in  the 
State  who  can  perform  the  duties  required  and  so  long  as  they  can  be 
found  we  want  no  other.  Upon  that  proposition  we  have  no  compromise 
measures.  We  are  responsible  to  the  people  for  the  internal  management 
and  we  want  our  friends,  and  not  our  enemies  on  guard.  As  long  as  this 
management  continues  it  will  be  strictly  partisan.  ...  It  is  true  that  some 
of  the  hogs  died  of  cholera  but  it  is  maliciously  false  to  say  that  one  ounce 
of  diseased  meat  was  ever  used  on  the  tables  and  the  Superintendent  will 
testify  under  oath  that  such  a  charge  is  wholly  imtrue. 

Here  followed  tables  showing  a  reduction  in  cost  under 
Democratic  management.     He  thus  continued: 

To  say  that  the  food  given  to  the  patients  is  not  first  class  in  every 
particular  is  contradicted  by  more  than  ten  thousand  personal  witnesses 
and  could  only  be  spoken  by  the  foul  tongue  of  the  slanderer. 

Will  this  committee  tell  the  public  why  the  Republican  party  never 
thought  of  a  non-partisan  management  of  the  benevolent  institutions 
during  twenty  years  under  their  control?  Will  they  state  why  they  began 
to  whine  like  hungry  spaniels  for  a  divide  of  the  offices  immediately  on 
losing  them?  Will  they  state  that  they  have  attempted  to  make  1600 
unhappy  homes  among  the  people  of  this  great  commonwealth  in  order 
to  benefit  the  Republican  party?  .  .  . 

It  is  strange  that  so  fair  a  committee  could  spend  seven  days  in  an 
institution  and  find  so  much  evil  and  no  good.  No,  the  truth  is  they  were 
sent  by  the  Republican  managers  in  the  interest  of  Senator  Harrison 


22  INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

covered  all  over  with  hypocrisy,  to  attack  the  great  charitable  institu- 
tion of  the  State — the  one  nearest  the  hearts  of  the  people — with  the 
hope  of  producing  alarm  and  dissatisfaction.  The  Chairman  of  this 
committee,  William  D.  Foulke,  was  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  Re- 
publican side  of  the  Senate  and  lately  telegraphed  from  Rhode  Island  that 
"he  was  ready  to  do  anything  he  could  for  the  Republican  party."  They 
would  not  even  trust  a  "Mugmump"  on  that  committee.  Only  true 
Republicans  were  permitted  in  the  scheme,  and  then  with  tallow-faced 
hypocrisy  they  disclaimed  that  it  has  any  partisan  relations.  .  .  . 

Now  to  conclude,  this  management  invites  every  interested  person  in 
the  State  to  investigate  the  affairs  of  the  hospital.  The  doors  will  be 
thrown  wide  open  to  every  ward  and  department  of  the  great  institu- 
tion. The  books  and  papers  are  ready  for  inspection,  even  the  butter 
and  meats  will  be  shown  to  a  Republican  Committee  for  party  purposes. 
We  live  in  no  glass  house  in  the  management  of  that  institution,  and 
join  Mr.  Foulke  in  asking  that  on  the  first  day  of  the  meeting  of  the  next 
General  Assembly  a  committee  be  appointed  for  an  impartial  investiga- 
tion, composed  of  men  who  are  honest  in  their  purpose  and  truthful  in 
their  report. 

After  this  answer  had  been  published,  we  did  not  allow 
either  the  hospital  authorities  or  the  public  much  breathing 
time,  for  Mr.  Rowland,  Mr.  Morton,  and  myself  met  that 
very  day  and  drew  up  a  reply  in  the  shape  of  an  open  letter 
to  Dr.  Harrison  which  was  submitted  that  evening  both  to 
the  Sentinel  and  the  Journal  for  publication.  It  contained 
the  following: 

It  is  not  true  that  our  cnarge  is  maliciously  false  when  we  say  that 
diseased  meat  was  used  upon  the  tables.  It  is  not  true  that  the  super- 
intendent will  testify  under  oath  to  the  falsity  of  s-uch  charge.  We  chal- 
lenge the  production  of  such  an  affidavit.  .  .  . 

It  is  not  true  that  any  member  of  this  committee  was  sent  to  investigate 
the  hospital  by  any  Republican  managers. 

It  is  not  true  that  every  member  of  the  committee  is  a  Republican.  .  .  . 
At  the  meeting  of  the  executive  committee,  at  which  this  report  was 
imanimously  adopted  and  ordered  printed,  only  two  of  the  four  members 
present  and  voting  were  Republicans.  .  .  . 

You  say  that  your  books  and  papers  are  ready  for  inspection,  yet  you 
refused  to  let  us  see  the  correspondence  of  the  asylum.  Did  not  Dr. 
Fletcher,  under  your  direction,  send  from  St.  Paul  a  telegram  directing 
that  the  minutes  of  the  board  should  not  be  shown  to  us?  Do  you  not 
know  that  we  were  refused  access  to  these  minutes  by  no  less  than  three 
persons  at  the  asylum  and  that  they  were  only  shown  to  us  after  the 


INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL  23 

Attorney  General  had  given  an  opinion  that  we  had  the  right  to  see  them? 
Does  not  your  present  candor  and  liberality  come  a  little  late?  We  are 
much  pleased,  however,  at  your  changed  attitude,  and  that  you  desire 
that  a  committee  should  be  appointed  by  the  next  General  Assembly  for 
an  impartial  investigation.  We  promise  you  our  cordial  cooperation  in 
making  such  an  examination  thorough  and  exhaustive.  .  .  . 

You  have  not  denied  that  additional  places  have  been  made  for  political 
workers.  .  .  . 

You  have  not  denied  that  prominent  politicians  of  your  party,  Messrs. 
Landers,  Cooper,  Sullivan,  and  others,  are  prominent  in  furnishing 
supplies. 

You  have  not  denied  that  Mr.  Gapen,  one  of  your  co-trustees,  has  been 
regularly  receiving  his  salary,  although  he  is  managing  a  sawmill  in  Ar- 
kansas and  was  not  present  at  more  than  one  meeting  between  October, 
1885,  and  July,  1886.  .  .  . 

You  have  not  denied  that  wholesale  discharges  of  employees  are  fre- 
quent. ... 

You  have  not  denied  that  the  very  morning  our  committee  were  at  the 
asylum,  butter  infested  with  maggots  had  been  concealed  in  the  sewe 
to  avoid  our  inspection.  .  .  . 

You  have  not  denied  that  of  over  six  hundred  hogs  purchased,  more  than 
one  half  died,  and  you  cannot  deny  that  killing  for  the  table  went  on  out 
of  the  dying  drove. 

You  have  not  denied  a  single  act  of  cruelty  to  the  patients  in  the 
asylum.  .  .  . 

You  have  not  denied  the  dissatisfaction  of  Dr.  Fletcher  with  the  present 
system  and  his  proposal  to  secure  a  higher  degree  of  efficiency  among  the 
attendants  by  a  regular  system  of  training;  nor  have  you  anywhere  claimed 
that  such  suggestions  have  been  acted  upon  by  you. 

All  these  things  are  admitted  by  your  silence.  You  cannot  justify  nor 
defend  your  administration  by  showing  the  shortcomings  of  your  Repub- 
lican or  Democratic  predecessors.  If  you  are  content  to  go  before  the 
people  of  Indiana  upon  such  a  record  as  that  presented  in  your  communi- 
cation you  may  rest  assured  that  your  conduct  will  be  approved  only  by 
those  whose  partisanship  is  paramount  to  their  himianity. 

The  Journal  published  this  reply  but  the  Sentinel  refused 
to  do  so  in  an  editorial  which  said:  "To  print  it  would  be  to 
give  further  currency  to  the  charges  made  by  Republicans 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Republican  party  in  this  campaign." 

The  Journal  answered  on  the  following  day  that  this  was 
the  first  time  it  ever  knew  a  paper  to  annoimce  that  it  was 
afraid  to  print  a  reply  to  an  article  to  which  it  had  previously 
given  currency  on  the  avowed  ground  that  if  its  readers  should 


24  INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

see  the  reply,  the  result  would  be  detrimental  to  the  party 
of  which  it  was  an  organ.  On  which  the  Sentinel  exploded 
as  follows: 

A  contemptible  lie  in  every  syllable.  You,  you  hypocrite,  prate  of 
fairness?  Your  issue  of  Saturday  reeks  with  blackguardism.  You  have 
printed  both  the  screeds  of  this  Foulke  committee,  headed  as  it  is  by  a 
man  who  has  not  even  the  common  sympathies  of  humanity  to  commend 
him  and  you  have  neither  the  grace  nor  the  courage  to  print  President 
Harrison's  refutation  of  the  detestable  slander  conceived  and  perpetuated 
by  this  slimy  Republican  reptile.  You  stand  upon  a  housetop  and,  with 
the  whites  of  your  eyes  turned  to  the  sky,  spit  venom  on  honorable  men 
in  the  name  of  heaven  and  the  Republican  party 

In  other  articles  in  the  Sentinel,  our  committee  were  "Buz- 
zards," "Hungry  Hawks,"  "Political  Pharisees,"  and  "A 
Trinity  of  Counterfeiters."  But  the  facts  appearing  in  the 
records  of  the  asylum  were  not  to  be  smothered  by  these 
endearments.  The  more  the  Sentinel  shrieked  and  sputtered 
the  worse  things  got  to  be.  Even  the  old  mossbacks,  who 
never  saw  any  other  paper,  began  to  think  that  there  must  be 
something  the  matter  to  give  rise  to  such  convulsions.  Dr. 
Harrison  now  made  a  second  reply  dated  September  26th, 
under  the  headlines:  "No  Diseased  Meat  and  no  Cruelty." 
It  contained  some  curious  things,  for  instance  the  following 
answer  to  our  charge  that  butter  infested  with  maggots  had 
been  concealed  in  the  sewer  to  avoid  our  inspection:  "Then 
it  was  not  put  upon  the  table  for  the  patients  to  eat;  there- 
fore your  statement  that  they  ate  maggoty  butter  was  a  lie." 

As  a  matter  of  defense  this  was  overwhelming!  It  was 
subsequently  shown  in  the  Senate  investigation  however,  by 
the  testimony  of  the  assistant  storekeeper,  that  this  butter 
was  taken  out  of  the  sewer  after  we  left  and  sent  up  to  the 
table  for  the  patients. 

In  this  answer  Dr.  Harrison  incorporated  a  letter  from 
Superintendent  Fletcher  in  which  he  said:  "While  a  large 
number  of  hogs  died  upon  our  hands,  in  no  instance  was 
diseased  pork  ever  slaughtered  or  put  upon  the  tables." 

We  were  now  compelled  to  disclose  the  authority  for  our 
statements,  which  was  no  less  than  Superintendent  Fletcher 


INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL  25 

himself,  to  whom  these  statements  had  been  read  before 
publication  and  pronounced  correct.  The  subject  was  now 
becoming  too  dangerous  to  handle  in  the  public  press  so  there 
was  no  more  direct  discussion  of  our  report.  The  trustees, 
however,  thought  that  a  flank  movement  might  safely  be 
made,  so  they  got  the  State  Board  of  Health  to  go  to  the 
asylum  and  report  that  everything  was  in  good  condition. 
The  columns  of  the  Journal  were  open  to  me  and  I  wrote  an 
article  satirizing  the  logical  character  of  this  answer  to  our 
charges. 

Charge:  Merithew  Thayer,  Mrs.  Anglemeyer,  and  others  saw  patients 
beaten,  teased,  and  inhumanly  used.  Answer:  On  October  6,  1886, 
when  the  Board  of  Health  visited  the  asylum  for  a  few  hours,  not  a  single 
act  of  cruelty  was  committed. 

Charge:  In  December,  1884,  and  July,  1885,  hogs  died  of  cholera  and 
slaughtering  went  on  out  of  the  dying  drove.  Answer:  On  October  6, 
1886,  when  the  State  Board  went  to  the  asylum,  no  diseased  meat  was 
observed  by  them. 

Charge:  John  E.  Sullivan  was  found  by  the  records  of  the  Board  to 
have  supplied  the  asylum  with  oleomargarine.  Answer:  On  October  6, 
1886,  the  asylum  authorities  provided  a  supply  of  good  butter.  .  .  . 

Charge:  Political  favorites  are  awarded  most  of  the  bids,  and  double 
prices  are  paid.    Answer:  "The  drainage  is  good." ^ 

By  this  time  the  campaign  for  the  election  of  members  of 
the  Legislature  was  in  full  swing  and  those  of  us  who  had 
taken  part  in  this  investigation  improved  our  opportunity 
to  speak  in  various  parts  of  the  State.  For  this  we  were 
Subjected  to  much  animadversion. 

I  remember  going  to  Lafayette  and  meeting  an  old  Demo- 
cratic colleague  in  the  Senate,  Mr.  Francis  Johnson,  who  kept 
a  little  bookstore  in  that  town.  He  was  an  honest,  simple- 
minded  German  with  whom  I  had  served  on  committees  and 
a  warm  personal  friendship  had  sprung  up  between  us.  When 
I  greeted  him,  he  said:  "Ah,  Mr.  Foulke,  I  am  ashamed  to 
see  you."     I  asked  him  why,  and  he  answered:     "Because 

^  It  was  about  this  time  (October  6, 1886)  that  our  Indiana  Civil  Service 
Association  held  its  second  annual  meeting.  I  delivered  the  President's 
address  discussing  our  investigation  of  the  Insane  Hospital  as  well  as  of 
the  federal  service  in  Indiana. 


26  INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

I  presided  not  long  ago  at  a  Democratic  meeting  here  in  the 
court  house,  when  Senator  McDonald  spoke  and  after  him 
Mr.  Myers,  Secretary  of  State,  and  Myers  said  in  his  speech: 
'Who  made  that  report  on  the  Insane  Hospital?  A  fellow 
by  the  name  of  Dudley  Foulke,  a  man  who  was  drunk  every 
day  during  the  last  session  of  the  Legislature.'  After  the 
meeting  was  over  I  said  to  him:  'Why  Mr.  Myers,  I  sat  next 
to  Mr.  Foulke  in  the  Senate  and  he  was  not  drunk  one  day 
and  now  you  say  he  was  drunk  every  day.'  And  what  do 
you  think  Myers  did?  He  just  laughed.  I  am  ashamed  that 
I  was  presiding  at  the  meeting." 

The  public  indignation  at  the  management  of  the  hospital 
spread  like  wildfire.  Nothing  could  be  done  to  stem  the  tide, 
and  in  spite  of  the  outrageous  gerrymander  of  the  State, 
the  Republicans  won  the  election  and  carried  the  lower  House. 
In  the  Senate  with  its  two-thirds  Democratic  majority  half 
the  members  held  over  on  their  four  years  terms  and  pre- 
vented that  body  from  becoming  Republican  also. 

Things  had  gone  desperately  wrong  with  the  politicians 
who  had  been  mismanaging  the  hospital.  The  trustees 
had  found  out  by  this  time  that  while  speech  might  be  silver, 
silence  was  eighteen-carat  gold.  So  when  the  Legislature 
met  nothing  was  said  about  the  asylum.  Maybe  the  Repub- 
licans, having  won  the  election,  would  now  turn  their  attention 
elsewhere. 

LEGISLATIVE  INVESTIGATION 

But  on  the  31st  of  January,  the  House  of  Representatives 
appointed  a  committee  to  investigate  the  hospital.  On 
February  8th,  this  committee  began  to  take  evidence.  At 
first  the  Sentinel  pretended  to  consider  this  inquiry  amusing. 
The  proceedings  were  entitled:  "An  Evening  with  the  Mug- 
wumps," into  which,  by  this  time,  we  had  become  transformed 
from  base  Republican  politicians  as  hitherto  portrayed  in 
its  columns.  But  as  the  investigation  went  on  it  was  realized 
that  the  committee  would  in  all  probability  present  a  dam- 
aging report.  Something  had  to  be  done,  so  the  Senate  deter- 
mined to  make  an  investigation  of  its  own  to  counteract  that 


LEGISLATIVE  INVESTIGATION  27 

of  the  House.  The  inquiry  was  taken  away  from  the  regular 
Committee  on  Benevolent  Institutions,  of  which  Senator  Rahm, 
a  comparatively  fair-minded  man,  was  chairman,  and  Green 
Smith,  the  President  of  the  Senate,  who  was  a  beneficiary  of 
the  spoils  system  and  who  had  relatives  and  friends  employed 
at  the  asylum,  appointed  certain  other  beneficiaries  as  mem- 
bers of  a  special  committee  to  inquire  (quoting  his  own  words) 
"whether  hog  cholera  and  maggoty  butter  took  any  votes 
away  from  the  Democrats." 

It  was  easy  to  see  from  such  a  beginning  what  the  end  would 
be,  yet  we  determined  to  present  our  evidence  to  this  Senate 
committee  as  well  as  to  the  committee  of  the  House  and  I 
asked  leave  to  be  present  by  attorney  for  the  purpose  of  sub- 
stantiating the  charges.  My  wife  had  been  very  ill  and  I 
had  to  go  with  her  to  Fort  Monroe  and  be  with  her  during 
her  convalescence  so  that  I  could  not  be  personally  present. 
Mr.  Morton  and  Mr.  Howland,  however,  the  other  members 
of  our  committee,  were  prepared  to  conduct  the  exam- 
ination. 

As  the  investigation  proceeded,  Dr.  Fletcher  himself  testi- 
fied to  the  political  appointments,  the  wretched  supplies 
furnished  at  the  highest  prices,  the  vile  butter,  the  brutal 
attendants,  the  disagreements  between  himself  and  the  Board. 
Then  the  Sentinel  wheeled  to  the  right  about  and  for  a  day  or 
two  iassumed  the  ofl&ce  of  reformer-in-chief.  In  an  article 
entitled,  "Let  the  Light  in,"  it  said:  "If  villainy  abides  in 
that  noble  charity  let  it  be  unkenneled !  The  time  has  come 
for  scrutiny,  for  exposure,  and  for  justice !  .  .  .  The  evidence 
for  the  prosecution  has  been  extremely  damaging.  This  must 
be  admitted." 

But  this  panic-stricken  newspaper  was  soon  reinvigorated 
on  account  of  an  incident  quite  outside  of  the  merits  of  the 
controversy.  Owing  to  a  deadlock  between  the  two  houses 
all  legislation  came  to  a  standstill  and  no  election  of  trustees 
of  the  Insane  Hospital  at  a  joint  meeting  of  House  and  Senate 
was  possible.  Hence  it  was  believed  that  Harrison,  Gapen, 
and  Burr  ell  would  keep  their  places  until  the  next  session  of 
the  Legislature,  which  was  two  years  away,  and  if  this  were 


28  INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

so  they  must  be  sustained  by  the  Democratic  members  and 
by  the  Democratic  organ  or  else  there  would  be  two  years 
of  an  administration  which  had  been  condemned  by  its  own 
party. 

So  the  Democrats  on  the  Senate  committee  made  up  their 
minds  to  exonerate  the  hospital  management  no  matter 
what  the  evidence  might  be.  This  evidence  was  indeed  more 
damaging  to  the  management  than  our  own  original  report, 
for  even  after  we  had  published  that  report  and  during  the 
political  campaign  in  which  it  was  an  issue,  unscrupulous  con- 
tractors had  continued  to  furnish  the  same  vile  butter,  while 
eight  new  boilers,  worthless  and  dangerous,  were  placed  in  the 
asylum.  They  leaked  when  subjected  to  a  hydrostatic  test 
of  one  hundred  pounds,  and  seven  of  them  had  to  be  patched 
within  a  short  time.  The  trustees  had  been  notified  of  the 
defects  yet  the  boilers  were  accepted  and  paid  for  at  a  price 
far  above  their  value. 

Fights  between  patients  were  of  frequent  occurrence;  es- 
capes were  numerous;  one  of  the  patients  was  never  found, 
and  another  not  until  after  she  was  dead;  and  the  political 
prostitution  of  this  vast  charity  and  the  incompetency  of  its 
employees  were  set  forth  in  a  striking  manner. 

But  all  this  was  nothing  to  the  Senate  committee.  That 
committee  employed  as  its  own  counsel  the  attorney  of  the 
trustees  and  thereby  put  him  into  the  anomalous  position  of 
acting  as  a  lawyer  for  the  defense  as  well  as  adviser  of  the 
judges  and  they  afterwards  paid  him  out  of  the  moneys  of  the 
State.  It  was  easy  to  see  what  the  result  of  such  an  investiga- 
tion would  be,  and  at  its  conclusion  there  was  drawn  up  a 
report  exonerating  the  administration  and  declaring  that  the 
hospital  was  "the  best  managed  institution  of  its  kind  in  the 
world." 

This  report  seemed  an  appropriate  object  of  ridicule  and 
in  the  Journal  I  quoted  the  verses  of  Coleridge 

The  river  Rhine,  it  is  well  known 
Doth  wash  the  city  of  Cologne 
But  tell  us.  Muse,  what  power  divine 
Shall  henceforth  wash  the  river  Rhine? 


LEGISLATIVE  INVESTIGATION  29 

At  the  same  time  that  the  Senate  committee  was  making 
its  investigation,  the  House  committee  was  also  taking  testi- 
mony. The  committee's  report ,  which  was  adopted,  confirmed 
all  the  charges  we  had  made,  added  a  ntimber  of  other  mat- 
ters, recommended  an  action  by  the  Attorney  General  for 
the  removal  of  the  trustees  and  that  a  non-partisan  board 
should  be  substituted;  that  applicants  for  positions  should 
pass  rigid  examinations  to  ascertain  their  fitness  and  that  they 
should  be  forbidden  to  take  part  in  politics. 

The  House  also  passed  a  general  civil  service  bill  which 
had  been  drawn  up  by  our  Association,  but  naturally  such 
a  bill  did  not  receive  the  favorable  consideration  of  the  Senate 
and  failed  to  become  a  law. 

Tirades  in  the  Sentinel  against  our  Association  continued 
from  week  to  week  and  from  month  to  month  until  they  at 
last  became  a  subject  of  amusement.  The  following  which 
is  found  in  the  issue  of  August  24,  1887,  is  a  fair  specimen  of 
the  type  of  journalism  which  they  represented. 

The  Indiana  Civil  Service  Reform  Association  is  composed  (if  indeed 
such  a  clique  existed  at  all)  of  Republican  moral  lepers,  who,  if  capable  of 
distinguishing  between  the  truth  and  a  lie,  always  chose  the  lie,  just  as  a 
buzzard  prefers  carrion  to  fresh  meat.  The  representatives  of  this  aggre- 
gation of  Republican  ulcers,  warts,  tumors,  sties,  and  fistulas  pretended 
to  investigate  affairs  at  the  Insane  Asylum.  They  did  not  investigate, 
they  were  incapable  of  investigating.  Their  purpose  was  to  manufacture 
and  publish  a  lying  report.  They  constituted  the  dregs  of  partisan  malice. 
Each  one  of  them  was  a  moving,  crawling,  breathing  pestilence.  There 
was  not  a  cholera-cursed  hog  in  Indiana  which  was  not  the  perfection 
of  robust  health  compared  with  any  one  of  the  representatives  of  the  so- 
called  "Indiana  Civil  Service  Reform  Association."  There  was  not  a 
maggot  in  any  tub  of  butter  anywhere  that  was  not  a  superior  creation 
to  any  one  of  the  "Civil  Service  Reform  Association"  who  pretended  to 
investigate  the  Insane  Hospital. 

But  the  Democrats  themselves  by  this  time  had  become 
so  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  management  was  a  discredit 
to  the  party  as  well  as  the  State  that  Governor  Gray  deter- 
mined to  get  rid  of  Harrison  and  Gapen.  Their  terms  of 
office  expired  on  February  27,  1887,  and  the  Governor,  assum- 
ing that  there  were  vacancies  after  that  date  on  account  of 


30  11^  V  EST  IG  AT  ION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

the  failure  of  the  General  Assembly  to  hold  an  election,  ap- 
pointed successors  to  each.  Harrison  and  Gapen,  however, 
held  on  to  their  places;  a  suit  was  brought  against  Harrison 
for  possession  of  the  office.  But  the  Supreme  Court  decided 
the  Governor  had  no  right  to  make  the  appointment. 

One  would  have  supposed  that  after  so  much  criticism  and 
investigation  there  would  have  been  at  least  an  attempt  at 
improvement,  but  this  was  not  the  case.  One  of  the  patients, 
a  paralytic,  was  scalded  to  death  in  a  bathtub  by  the  negli- 
gence of  an  attendant,  a  recent  political  appointee,  and  the 
cause  of  his  death  was  concealed. 

Gapen  actually  took  a  position  at  twenty-five  dollars  a 
week  with  John  E.  Sullivan,  the  pturveyor  of  the  vile  and  un- 
wholesome supplies,  and  Sullivan  was  more  than  ever  successful 
in  securing  his  contracts  and  getting  his  goods  accepted. 

SUIT   TO   REMOVE   THE   TRUSTEES 

The  House  of  Representatives  had  recommended  that  a 
suit  be  instituted  by  the  Attorney  General  for  the  removal 
of  the  guilty  trustees.  That  had  not  been  immediately  done 
since  Governor  Gray  had  put  other  men  in  their  places,  and 
while  the  proceedings  for  the  possession  of  the  office  still 
remained  undecided,  it  was  hoped  that  such  a  suit  might  be 
unnecessary.  But  after  the  Supreme  Court  had  held  that 
the  removals  made  by  the  Governor  were  illegal,  Attorney 
General  Michener  determined  to  file  a  complaint  in  the 
Superior  Court  of  Indianapolis  to  remove  the  trustees  for 
misfeasance  in  office.  Our  Reform  Association  tendered  its 
services,  the  Attorney  General  accepted  our  offer,  and  Judge 
James  E.  Black  and  myself  were  appointed  to  act  as  counsel 
and  assist  him  in  the  prosecution.  Mr.  Michener  and  I 
then  began  the  work  of  preparing  the  complaint.  It  contained 
some  twenty  counts  of  a  varied  natiure  and  was  filed  on  the 
23d  of  March,  1888.  Among  the  counts  there  were  two 
which  raised  the  distinct  question  of  the  illegality  of  the  spoils 
system  itself. ' 

*  On  the  5th  of  April,  an  unexpected  episode  occurred.  Two  libel  suits 
were  brought,  one  by  John  E.  Sullivan  and  the  other  by  Harrison  against 


SUIT  TO  REMOVE  THE  TRUSTEES  3I 

We  insisted  that  the  proceedings  to  remove  the  trustees 
were  in  the  nature  of  impeachment  and  that  officers  were 
impeachable  for  a  wanton  abuse,  even  of  discretionary  author- 
ity, as  in  the  case  of  judges,  where  the  motives  of  their  judicial 
acts  were  shown  to  be  improper.  It  was  claimed  as  a  prin- 
ciple of  common  law  that  public  office  was  a  public  trust; 
that  the  duty  imposed  in  this  case  was  to  take  proper  care 
of  the  insane  and  to  use  all  reasonable  diligence  in  securing 
as  caretakers  those  who  were  skilled  in  such  work  and  who 
would  properly  perform  it;  that  the  removal  of  meritorious 
employees  could  be  properly  made  only  where  the  object  was 
to  secure  those  who  were  more  meritorious;  that  the  trust 
could  not  be  made  subordinate  to  any  personal  or  political 
interest  of  the  trustees ;  that  the  appointment  of  any  employee 
because  he  was  a  person  serviceable  to  the  trustees  without 
regard  to  the  manner  in  which  he  should  perform  his  duty, 
was  as  much  a  violation  of  the  trust  as  a  diversion  of  the  trust 
fund,  for  personal  or  party  use;  that  the  best  service  obtain- 
able could  not  be  secured  where  any  considerable  class  among 
those  who  were  competent  were  excluded  from  the  oppor- 
tunity for  appointment;  that  the  trustees  had  no  more  right 
to  say  that  none  but  Democrats  should  take  care  of  the  in- 
sane than  they  would  have  the  right  to  say  that  none  but 
red-headed  men  should  take  care  of  the  insane;  that  by 
reason  of  these  appointments  and  exclusions  made  for  per- 
sonal and  political  reasons  without  regard  to  fitness,  many 
unfit,  brutal,  and  vicious  men  were  appointed  to  take  charge 
of  these  wards  of  the  State,  to  their  great  injury.  There  was, 
in  the  langtiage  of  the  statute,  a  failure  ' '  faithfully  to  perform 
the  duties  of  their  office"  for  which  they  should  be  removed. 

In  regard  to  the  second  paragraph  the  obligation  was  to 


Mr.  Michener,  the  Attorney  General,  and  myself,  each  for  $20,000  for 
damages  to  their  respective  reputations.  Sullivan's  suit  was  based  upon 
a  charge  of  bribery  contained  in  our  complaint  which  was  alleged  to  be 
false  and  Harrison's  suit  upon  this  charge  of  bribery  as  well  as  the  charge 
of  the  appropriation  of  hospital  supplies,  but  neither  complainant  did 
anything  to  press  these  suits  and  in  the  following  December  they  were 
dismissed. 


32  INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

see  that  the  men  selected  should  properly  perform  their  duties. 
The  trustees  were  bound  to  abstain  from  any  act  which  would 
lead  to  the  neglect  of  those  duties.  But  they  induced  these 
men  to  abandon  the  care  of  the  insane  in  order  to  perform 
political  services.  This  was  a  direction  to  violate  their  duty, 
and  was,  of  itself,  a  failure  upon  the  part  of  the  trustees  to 
fulfil  the  trust  which  devolved  upon  them.^ 

After  these  paragraphs  were  prepared,  they  were  sub- 
mitted to  several  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  Indiana 
bar,  and  the  opinion  among  these  gentlemen  was  unanimous 
that  they  alleged  a  violation  of  duty  sufficient  to  justify  the 
removal  of  the  trustees.     Mr.  John  T.  Dye,  one  of  the  most 

'  Many  precedents  were  cited,  both  in  England  and  America,  among 
the  most  important  being  the  following:  Comyn's  Digest:  Tit,  Parlia- 
ment, L.  35:  "The  Spencers  were  impeached  for  'that  they  put  good 
magistrates  out  of  office  and  advanced  bad, '  citing  4  Coke's  Institutes,  53." 

Story  on  the  Constitution,  speaking  of  impeachments  at  Common  Law, 
Section  800,  says:  "Others,  again,  were  founded  on  the  most  salutary 
public  justice,  such  as  impeachments  for  malversations  and  neglect  in 
office,  for  encouraging  pirates,  for  official  oppression,  extortions,  and  deceits, 
and  especially  for  putting  good  magistrates  out  of  office  and  advancing 
bad." 

In  Rex  vs.  Williams  (3  Burr,  13 17)  an  opinion  was  granted  by  the  Court 
against  the  defendants,  as  Justices  of  the  Peace  for  the  borough  of  Penryn, 
for  refusing  to  grant  licenses  to  those  publicans  who  voted  against  their 
recommendation  of  candidates  for  members  of  Parliament  for  that  borough. 
"It  appeared  that  they  had  acted  very  grossly  in  this  matter,  having  pre- 
viously threatened  to  ruin  these  people,  by  not  granting  them  licenses 
in  case  they  should  vote  against  those  candidates  whose  interest  the 
Justices  themselves  espoused,  and  afterwards  actually  refusing  them 
licenses,  upon  this  account  only.  And  Lord  Mansfield  declared  that  the 
Court  granted  this  information  against  the  Justices  not  for  the  mere  re- 
fusing to  grant  the  licenses  (which  they  had  a  discretion  to  grant  or  refuse 
as  they  should  see  to  be  right  and  proper)  but  for  the  corrupt  motive 
of  such  refusal — for  their  oppressive  and  unjust  refusing  to  grant  them 
because  the  persons  applying  for  them  would  not  give  their  votes  for  Mem- 
bers of  Parliament  as  the  Justices  would  have  had  them."  See  also  Rex 
vs.  Hann.,  3  Burr,  17 16,  1786. 

In  1789,  Mr.  Madison,  in  the  debates  on  the  Constitution,  said:  "The 
President  is  impeachable  for  the  wanton  removal  of  meritorious  officers" 
(Elliott's  Debates,  vol.  i.,  p.  350-404),  6  Am.  Law  Reg.,  649,  or  for  continu- 
ing bad  men  in  office  (id.  652,  4  Elliott's  Debates,  38) . 


SUIT  TO  REMOVE  THE  TRUSTEES  33 

distinguished  lawyers  of  Indianapolis,  volunteered  to  assist 
us  and  took  an  active  part  in  the  oral  argument  of  the  de- 
murrer which  was  filed  by  the  trustees.  Unfortunately  the 
question  had  to  be  submitted  to  a  tribunal  which  had 
been  long  accustomed  to  the  methods  of  the  spoilsmen. 
The  judicial  tendencies  of  the  Court  were  shown  by  a  brief 
colloquy  during  the  argtunent  of  the  demurrer,  between  the 
defendants'  counsel  and  the  presiding  judge,  Napoleon  B. 
Taylor.  Mr.  Herod,  who  represented  the  trustees,  began 
his  argument  as  to  one  of  our  paragraphs  with  the  remark, 
"The  millennium  of  Civil  Service  Reform  has  not  yet  come." 
"No,"  answered  the  presiding  judge,  "nor  will  it  come  imtil 
the  government  provides  an  office  for  every  citizen."  The 
reasoning  by  which  his  Honor  reached  this  conclusion  was 
not  disclosed.  Indeed  the  argument  was  a  nmning  fire 
between  the  presiding  judge  and  the  counsel  for  the  prosecu- 
tion. "If  these  principles  are  law,  they  have  been  violated 
ever  since  the  foundation  of  our  government."  And  when 
his  Honor  was  reminded  that  in  the  early  administrations, 
from  Washington  to  John  Quincy  Adams,  they  had  been 
observed,  he  answered  that  since  that  time  we  had  set  aside 
such  notions,  and  that  the  appointing  power  had  a  good  right 
to  remove  a  meritorious  officer!  It  was  suggested  that  a 
breach  of  duty  or  of  law  could  not  make  a  precedent,  that 
no  matter  how  many  corporate  directors  violated  their  duties 
in  the  purchase  of  corporate  property  to  their  own  advantage, 
this  could  never  make  it  anything  but  an  illegal  act.  But 
such  analogies  were  listened  to  by  most  unwilling  ears.  In- 
deed, I  could  not  help  thinking  of  an  old  story  in  Indiana, 
of  one  of  our  backwoods  lawyers  in  early  times,  who  set  up 
against  an  indictment  for  stealing  hogs  the  plea  that  it  was 
the  custom  of  the  country  to  steal  hogs. 

Not  an  authority  was  presented  by  the  other  side  in  answer 
to  the  considerations  which  we  submitted.  In  a  brief  filed 
some  ten  days  afterwards  the  only  claim  which  I  recollect 
was  that  if  civil  service  reform  principles  were  part  of  the 
common  law,  why  was  it  that  a  civil  service  reform  law 
was  introduced  into  the  Senate  some  years  before?    The 


34  IhlVESTIGATlON  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

judges  took  the  case  under  advisement,  and  afterward  an- 
nounced that  they  would  sustain  the  demurrers  to  these 
paragraphs ;  but  said  they  had  decided  not  to  give  any  opinion 
nor  to  state  the  grounds  upon  which  the  demurrers  were 
sustained — a  course  which  prudence  manifestly  dictated. 

The  case  was  set  for  trial  in  September,  1888.  The  pros- 
pect of  succeeding  in  a  tribunal  which  had  made  such  an 
extraordinary  decision  was  not  flattering  and  in  any  event 
the  defendants  could  by  an  appeal  and  other  dilatory  pro- 
ceedings postpone  their  removal  from  office  until  after  the 
General  Assembly  met  whose  duty  it  was  to  elect  their  suc- 
cessors. Our  best  course  to  obtain  their  removal  was  to 
secure  the  election  of  members  of  the  Legislature  who  were 
pledged  to  the  reform  of  the  benevolent  institutions.  So  we 
determined  to  press  the  matter  in  the  coming  campaign 
rather  than  in  this  suit  and  the  case  dragged  on  without  any 
active  proceedings  on  either  side. 

CAMPAIGN  OF    1 888 

In  the  campaign  of  1888  General  Harrison  had  been  nomi- 
nated as  the  Republican  candidate  for  the  presidency.  The 
Republican  National  and  State  platforms  contained  strong 
declarations  in  favor  of  civil  service  reform.  I  took  an  active 
part  in  the  campaign.  On  one  occasion,  I  addressed  a  meeting 
in  the  court  house  at  Bloomington  with  Albert  J.  Beveridge, 
then  quite  a  young  man  but  one  who  had  greatly  distinguished 
himself  upon  the  stump.  I  spoke  first  and  related  the  abuses 
we  had  discovered,  making,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  a  pretty 
strong  case.  I  had  perhaps  a  better  personal  knowledge 
of  the  facts  than  any  other  person  outside  of  the  institution 
we  investigated.  After  I  closed,  my  companion  rose.  He 
walked  backwards  and  forwards  along  the  small  open  space 
reserved  for  the  members  of  the  bar  and  gave  a  burning  de- 
scription of  the  horrors  inflicted  upon  the  helpless  victims 
of  madness.  You  could  smell  the  tainted  meat  and  see  the 
maggots  in  the  butter ;  you  could  hear  the  blows  of  the  brutal 
attendants  upon  the  backs  of  the  patients ;  and  their  screams 


REMOVAL  OF  TRUSTEES  35 

as  the  scalding  water  was  poured  upon  them  in  the  bathtubs 
where  they  had  been  left  by  their  caretakers.  So  vivid  was 
the  scene  that  the  audience  became  hysterical  with  sympathy 
and  indignation.  To  tell  the  truth,  I  never  myself  realized 
the  enormity  of  the  outrages  I  had  taken  so  considerable  a 
part  in  revealing  until  I  heard  them  described  by  the  eloquent 
young  orator  who  knew  nothing  at  all  about  them. 

The  campaign  ended  with  a  Republican  victory.  Benjamin 
Harrison  was  chosen  President  and  carried  Indiana.  Alvin 
P.  Hovey,  the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor,  was  also 
elected,  but  owing  to  the  gerrymander  which  had  been  passed 
by  the  Democratic  Legislature  of  1885,  the  State  was  again 
misrepresented  in  the  General  Assembly.  The  Democratic 
members  had,  however,  at  last  become  alive  to  the  fact  that 
the  management  of  the  Insane  Hospital  was  an  injury  to  their 
party  so  it  was  determined  that  the  trustees  who  had  aroused 
such  criticism  should  no  longer  be  retained.  Moreover  on  the 
29th  of  January,  while  the  Legislature  was  in  session,  John 
E.  Sullivan  failed  in  business  and  made  an  assignment  to 
Trustee  Gapen.  Two  days  later,  Sullivan  started  for  Canada. 
Governor  Hovey  asked  for  an  investigation.  A  joint  com- 
mittee was  appointed  by  the  Senate  and  the  House,  which  on 
the  last  day  of  the  session  presented  a  report  finding  all  sorts 
of  corruption  and  many  defalcations. 

REMOVAL   OF  TRUSTEES 

The  Legislature  did  not  wait,  however,  until  this  report 
was  made  before  superseding  the  guilty  board  of  trustees. 
A  bill  was  passed  repealing  the  Brown  Bill  of  1883  and  sub- 
stituting an  act  providing  that  the  three  benevolent  institu- 
tions should  be  governed  by  three  separate  boards  of  three 
members  each  to  be  elected  by  the  Legislature,  and  on  March 
5th,  Thomas  Markey,  Joseph  L.  Carson,  and  Zachariah  H. 
Houser  were  elected  trustees.  Still  the  old  board  refused  to 
turn  over  the  hospital  without  certain  ** concessions"  and  it 
was  not  until  April,  1889,  that  the  new  board  actually  took 
possession. 


36  INVESTIGATION  OF  THE  INDIANA  HOSPITAL 

The  new  act  did  not  do  away  with  partisanship  in  the  be- 
nevolent institutions.  It  simply  removed  the  individuals  who 
had  been  guilty  of  mismanagement.  But  by  this  time  the 
new  board,  although  it  was  a  Democratic  body,  had  become 
convinced  that  the  graver  abuses  which  had  existed  under 
its  predecessors  must  not  be  continued  and  most  of  the  scandals 
ceased. 

It  was  not  until  1895  that  these  benevolent  institutions  of 
Indiana,  which  by  this  time  had  increased  in  nimiber,  were 
removed  from  partisan  management  by  the  act  of  March  nth 
of  that  year.  A  Board  of  Control  was  then  established  and 
it  was  provided  that  the  Governor  should  appoint  on  this 
board  eighteen  persons,  three  for  each  institution,  and  that 
not  more  than  nine  should  be  members  of  one  party  nor  more 
than  two  in  each  particular  institution,  and  that  no  employee 
should  be  selected  or  dismissed  on  account  of  his  political 
affiliations.  Two  years  later  this  Board  of  Control  was 
abolished  and  boards  of  trustees  of  three  each  were  provided 
for  instead;  not  more  than  two  in  any  one  board  were  to  be 
of  the  same  party,  and  political  appointments  and  removals 
were  in  like  manner  forbidden.  Several  other  changes  have 
occurred  in  the  law.  By  an  act  of  March  2,  1907,  the  boards 
were  to  be  composed  of  four  trustees  each,  two  from  each 
party,  and  all  employees  were  to  be  appointed  by  the  super- 
intendent, regardless  of  political  affiliations,  on  the  basis  of 
fitness  only  and  after  such  examination  as  might  be  pre- 
scribed by  the  board  of  the  particular  institution.  The 
trustees  were  forbidden  to  request  appointments  or  discharges 
and  campaign  assessments  were  prohibited. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  pursue  the  subject  further.  Indiana 
has  not  yet  adopted  any  comprehensive  or  effective  civil 
service  law  for  her  State  institutions  but  public  opinion  is 
now  so  strong  and  universal  that  it  is  believed  that  any  ex- 
tensive manipulation  of  these  institutions  for  party  purposes 
is  no  longer  to  be  feared. 


CHAPTER  III 

INVESTIGATIONS   OF  THE  FEDERAL  CIVIL   SERVICE 

The  investigation  of  the  Hospital  for  the  Insane  was  only 
one  of  the  activities  of  otir  Indiana  Civil  Service  Reform  Asso- 
ciation. Indeed  even  before  that  was  undertaken  I  had  made 
an  inquiry  into  the  system  of  removals  upon  secret  charges 
adopted  by  President  Cleveland  early  in  his  administration, 
an  inquiry  which  was  afterward  considered  by  the  Association. 

REMOVALS   UPON   SECRET   CHARGES 

In  December,  1884,  shortly  after  Mr.  Cleveland  had  been 
elected  and  before  he  had  been  inaugurated,  he  wrote  to  George 
Wm.  Curtis,  president  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform 
League,  an  open  letter  in  regard  to  the  civil  service  law.  In 
this  letter,  after  promising  an  earnest  effort  to  enforce  the 
act,  he  said : 

There  is  a  class  of  government  positions  which  are  not  within  the  letter 
of  the  civil  service  statute,  but  which  are  so  disconnected  with  the  policy 
of  an  administration  that  the  removal  therefrom  of  present  incumbents, 
in  my  opinion,  should  not  be  made  during  the  terms  for  which  they  were 
appointed  solely  on  partisan  grounds  and  for  the  purpose  of  putting  in 
their  places  those  who  are  in  political  accord  with  the  appointing  power- 
But  many  now  holding  such  positions  have  forfeited  all  just  claims  to 
retention,  because  they  have  used  their  places  for  party  purposes  without 
regard  to  their  duty  to  the  people,  and  because,  instead  of  being  decent 
public  servants,  they  have  proved  themselves  offensive  partisans  and 
unscrupulous  manipulators  of  local  party  management.  The  lessons 
of  the  past  should  be  unlearned,  and  such  officials,  as  well  as  their  succes- 
sors, should  be  taught  that  efficiency,  fitness,  and  devotion  to  public  duty 
are  the  conditions  of  their  continuance  in  public  place. 

When  he  became  President,  Mr.  Cleveland  appointed  Mr. 
Wm.  F.  Vilas  as  his  Postmaster  General.     The  Post  Office 

37 


38      INVESTIGATIONS  OF  FEDERAL  SERVICE 

Department  controlled  far  more  patronage  than  any  other. 
The  pressure  for  place  was  enormous  and  Mr.  Vilas  and  the 
President  attempted  the  impossible  task  of  yielding  to  it 
and  at  the  same  time  of  trying  to  reconcile  it  with  the  prin- 
ciples announced  in  the  letter  to  Mr.  Curtis.  Republican 
officials  were  to  be  dismissed  for  **  offensive  partisanship"  and 
Democrats  were  to  be  put  in  their  places.^ 

It  was  announced  that  removals  from  subordinate  posi- 
tions were  only  to  be  made  upon  charges  either  of  such  offen- 
sive partisanship  or  some  other  violation  of  duty. 

Between  the  ist  and  20th  of  August,  1885,  noticing  that 
"suspensions"  of  postmasters  were  becoming  very  frequent, 
I  addressed  193  letters  to  postmasters  suspended  in  Indiana 
and  102  letters  to  Presidential  postmasters  elsewhere.  I 
inquired  of  each  the  cause  of  the  suspension,  whether  any 
charges  had  been  made,  and  whether  there  had  been  any 
investigation  or  any  opportunity  for  defense. 

In  only  two  instances,  according  to  the  answers,  had  there 
been  any  investigation.  In  every  other  case  no  notice  of 
any  charges  had  been  given,  no  cause  assigned,  no  opportunity 
afforded  for  defense,  denial,  or  explanation.  In  a  large  num- 
ber of  cases  the  first  information  on  the  subject  received  by 
the  postmaster  removed  was  by  newspaper  report  or  upon 
presentation  of  the  order  of  removal  by  the  new  appointee. 

In  fifteen  cases  in  Indiana  the  change  was  attributed  to  the 
Congressman  in  the  district,  the  successor  in  some  instances 
having  been  promised  the  office  in  advance.     Sometimes  the 

^The  Postmaster  General  in  a  circular  letter,  dated  April  29,  1885, 
laid  down  the  following  specifications  of  what  constituted  "offensive 
partisanship." 

(i)  Having  been  an  active  editor  or  proprietor  of  a  Republican  news- 
paper printing  offensive  articles. 

(2)  Having  been  a  stump  speaker. 

(3)  Having  been  a  member  of  a  political  committee. 

(4)  Having  been  an  officer  of  a  campaign  club. 

(5)  Having  been  an  organizer  of  political  meetings. 

(6)  Having  made  his  office  headquarters  of  political  work. 

(7)  Having  put  his  clerks  to  the  performance  of  political  duties. 

(8)  Possibly  other  acts  of  equal  force. 


REMOVALS  UPON  SECRET  CHARGES  39 

parties  learned  by  hearsay  or  street  rumor  that  charges  of 
"offensive  partisanship"  had  been  preferred.  In  twenty- 
one  cases  a  request  was  made  for  information  respecting  the 
charges  and  for  an  opportunity  for  investigation  but  no  such 
opportunity  was  given  nor  were  the  charges  disclosed. 

Knowing  that  this  information  was  ex  parte  and  not  be- 
lieving it  possible  that  these  removals  had  been  thus  made 
with  the  approval  of  the  author  of  the  letter  to  Mr.  Curtis, 
I  communicated  to  the  President,  personally,  the  results  of 
my  inquiries  together  with  the  names  of  the  postmasters  in 
question. 

The  President  told  me,  however,  that  he  approved  of  this 
course,  that  he  considered  it  impracticable  to  inform  the  post- 
masters of  charges  against  them ;  that  this  would  be  turning 
the  question  of  their  removal  into  a  judicial  investigation; 
that  they  were  continually  protesting,  objecting,  and  asking 
for  copies  of  the  charges,  but  that  these  could  not  be  furnished 
them.  I  suggested  that  there  was  little  use  of  requiring  that 
charges  should  be  preferred,  if  the  man  to  be  removed  was 
not  permitted  to  see  them;  that  charges  were  frequently  made 
by  persons  titterly  irresponsible  and  often  by  those  who  did 
not  pretend  to  know  the  facts;  that  such  charges  were  fre- 
quently false  and  that  it  was  not  possible  to  procure  accurate 
information  until  both  sides  had  at  least  a  chance  to  be 
heard.  He  said  he  regretted  that  I  had  made  these  inquiries; 
that  the  Department  had  to  get  its  information  as  best  it 
could;  that  he  had  great  difficulty  in  bringing  many  of  his 
party  friends  up  to  his  ideas  of  this  reform  and  that  Indiana 
was  a  particularly  bad  State  in  that  respect. 

This  system  of  removals  upon  secret  charges  was  evidently 
the  joint  offspring  of  the  President's  desire  for  civil  service 
reform  and  the  clamor  of  his  party  for  the  spoils,  and,  like 
many  other  hybrids,  the  progeny  was  inferior  to  either  pro- 
genitor. It  encouraged  spies  and  informers;  slander,  false- 
hood, and  suspicion.  The  political  retainers  all  understood 
that  they  were  to  get  the  offices  by  some  underhand  method, 
while  every  man  suspended  carried  with  him  the  implication 
that  he   had   been  discharged  for  some  breach  of  duty,  of 


40      INVESTIGATIONS  OF  FEDERAL  SERVICE 

which  he  might  have  been  wholly  innocent.  Frequently  the 
accuser  was  rewarded  for  his  secret  slander  by  appointment 
to  the  ojSice.^ 

I  gave  the  President  many  instances  of  such  removals 
upon  charges  which  were  said  to  be  entirely  false.  No  doubt 
some  of  the  denials  by  the  suspended  postmasters  were  them- 
selves untrue.  They  were  ex  parte  statements  and  necessarily 
so  from  the  fact  that  neither  the  charge  nor  the  accuser  was 
known.  Among  so  many  removals  there  were  no  doubt 
some  which  were  properly  made.  The  objection  was  not  to 
any  particular  case,  but  to  a  system  which  made  it  impos- 
sible for  the  Department  to  know  whether  the  charge  was 
proper  and  under  which  many  acts  of  flagrant  injustice  were 
sure  to  be  committed.  Such  a  system  would  naturally  be 
used  by  spoilsmen  and  even  criminals  to  get  places.  Indeed 
the  appointees  appeared  to  be  largely  from  that  class.  ^ 

*  The  following  cases  are  illustrations  of  this  system  of  removals: 
Louisa  C.  Canine  stated  that  she  was  removed,  without  notice,  upon 

the  false  charge,  preferred  by  A.  J.  Kitt,  her  successor,  that  she  was  a 
non-resident. 

E.  R.  Kirk,  of  Sioux  City,  Iowa,  was  removed  through  the  agency  of 
one  Chase,  an  office  broker,  upon  affidavits  of  partisanship,  made  by  an 
cx-policeman  and  the  son-in-law  of  his  successor,  Crawford. 

S.  A.  Marine  of  Vinton,  Iowa,  heard  that  the  specification  against  him 
was  the  delivery  of  a  partisan  address  on  Decoration  Day,  which  was  in 
fact  delivered  by  his  brother. 

*  Thus  W.  M.  Hancock,  postmaster  at  Meridian,  Miss.,  was  succeeded 
by  Colonel  J.  J.  Shannen,  who  was  convicted  January  2,  1872,  in  the 
United  States  District  Court  at  Jackson,  Miss.,  of  criminally  conspiring 
with  others  for  the  purpose  of  depriving  negroes  of  equal  rights  under  the 
Constitution. 

One  Crawford,  successor  of  Kirk,  of  Sioux  City,  Iowa,  had  been  sen- 
tenced to  the  penitentiary  at  Yankton,  Dak. 

James  Dowling,  appointed  by  the  influence  of  Mr.  Bynum,  Democratic 
Congressman  from  Indianapolis,  to  a  position  in  the  railway  mail  service, 
boasted  that  he  had  bribed  certain  members  of  the  Common  Council  of 
Indianapolis,  of  which  body  he  was  a  member.  For  this  he  had  been  tried 
by  the  Council  and  found  guilty,  by  a  two  thirds  vote,  of  bribery.  A 
majority  voted  to  expel  him,  but  the  requisite  two  thirds  was  lacking  for 
that  purpose.  Before  the  grand  jury  Dowling  had  refused  to  testify  on 
the  ground  that  his  answer  might  incriminate  him. 

These  facts  were  notorious  in  Indiana.    The  Postmaster  General  was 


THE  FEDERAL  SERVICE  IN  INDIANA         41 

It  was  not  until  near  the  end  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  term,  how- 
ever, that  the  details  of  the  system  of  removal  upon  secret 
charges  were  generally  spread  before  the  country.  On  March 
27th,  1888,  I  called  upon  Mr.  Eugene  Hale,  the  chairman 
of  the  Senate  Civil  Service  Committee,  and  told  him  the 
results  of  my  inquiries.  He  asked  me  to  appear  before  the 
committee  on  the  following  morning  and  to  bring  with  me 
the  correspondence  and  documents  relating  to  my  investiga- 
tion. I  did  so  and  detailed  what  I  had  done.  The  account 
of  this  testimony  was  scattered  broadcast  by  the  Associated 
Press  and  other  newspaper  agencies  and  excited  comment 
everywhere. 

THE  FEDERAL  SERVICE  IN  INDIANA 

At  the  time  I  related  this  story  of  removals  upon  secret 
charges,  I  also  left  with  the  committee  the  report  of  another 
investigation  made  by  Mr.  Lucius  B.  Swift,  and  approved  by 
our  Indiana  Association.  It  was  a  general  review  of  appoint- 
ments and  dismissals  in  the  federal  service  in  Indiana.  It 
commenced  with  an  account  of  the  management  of  the  In- 
dianapolis post  office,  which  was  then  the  only  classified  office 
in  the  State.  The  report  showed  that  Aquilla  Jones,  who 
had  been  appointed  postmaster  by  Mr.  Cleveland  and  took 
charge  of  the  office  April  19, 1885,  began  at  once  a  clean  sweep 
of  the  unclassified  places.  ^ 

notified  of  them  by  Lucius  B.  Swift,  but  wrote  to  Mr.  Swift  that  it  would 
be  fair  for  Mr.  Dowling  "to  have  notice  of  the  accusation,  because  inquiry 
might  put  a  different  complexion  on  the  case."  The  importance  of  in- 
vestigation and  of  the  old  maxim  audi  alteram  partem  was  thus  recog- 
nized by  the  very  man  who  refused  to  grant  it  in  the  cases  above. 

Mr.  Dowling  remained  in  the  service  until  he  suffered  a  mail  train  to 
go  to  Peoria  and  back  without  any  attendant  and  the  mail  remained 
undistributed.    Then  he  was  discharged. 

'  He  appointed  as  assistant  postmaster  John  W.  Dodd,  an  obscure  and 
reduced  politician.  A  worse  selection  could  not  have  been  made.  He 
appointed  as  cashier  his  son,  Ben.  Jones,  both  Dodd  and  Jones  taking 
the  place  of  a  single  man.  The  other  places  were  filled  with  untried 
men.  In  the  sack  repair  department  within  a  few  weeks  every  man  and 
woman  was  dismissed  and  succeeded  by  a  Democrat,  The  janitors  of  the 
building,  watchman,   engineer,   and  elevator  boy  were  changed  in  like 


42      INVESTIGATIONS  OF  FEDERAL  SERVICE 

Next  the  classified  service  men  were  wantonly  displaced 
and  Democrats  selected  for  their  positions. '  In  order  to  do 
this  a  new  examination  was  held  although  there  were  many 
eligibles  remaining.  Mr.  Jones  said  that  no  Republicans 
passed  this  examination.  There  was  a  sudden  monopoly  of 
the  ability  to  answer  questions  in  the  adherents  of  the  party 
in  power. 

After  this  examination  removals  began  in  good  earnest.'' 

Sometimes  instead  of  dismissing  carriers,  resignations  were 
forced.     In  a  number  of  cases  charges  were  preferred.^ 

Sometimes  these  were  manufactured  out  of  whole  cloth.  "* 

manner.  Mr.  Jones  said:  "I  have  made  such  removals  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  the  persons  were  Republicans."  The  men  appointed 
were  active  political  workers;  their  names  and  acts  of  partisanship  were 
specified  in  the  report. 

*  Mr.  Jones  told  Louis  Rowland  and  Lucius  B.  Swift  that  he  would  not 
appoint  Republicans  even  if  they  passed  and  no  matter  how  high  they 
stood. 

»  Oscar  P.  Hoover  had  to  go  because,  as  Jones  said,  he  was  going  to  make 
places  for  others;  that  it  made  no  difference  whether  this  was  a  violation 
of  the  civil  service  law.  Mr.  Jones  told  W.  E.  Tousey  that  he  had  no 
complaint  to  make;  that  all  he  wanted  was  the  place. 

Jones  told  M.  A.  Lockwood:  "You  are  all  going  anyway;  I  have  kept 
all  of  you  longer  than  I  have  wanted  to;  summer  has  come  now  and  you 
can  make  a  living  and  I  want  you  all  to  get  out  of  here." 

To  Gustav  Schmedel,  Jones  said:  "I  have  no  complaint  to  make  only 
I  have  a  Democrat  whom  I  wish  to  put  in  your  place,"  and  later  Dodd 
told  him  that  if  he  did  not  resign  Jones  would  find  some  charges  against 
him. 

Mr.  Dodd  said:  "If  we  begin  to  make  promises  to  keep  carriers  we 
shall  have  no  places  for  our  political  friends."  Dodd  gave  Levi  S.  Hand 
as  the  reason  for  his  dismissal:  "I  don't  know  anything  more  than  we  want 
your  place  for  a  Democrat;  we  have  got  to  begin  somewhere  so  we  begin 
with  you."  To  Oliver  P.  McLeland  he  said:  "It  is  better  for  the  boys  to 
resign  than  to  have  us  drum  up  charges  against  them."  And,  "It  almost 
breaks  Mr.  Jones'  heart  to  have  to  drum  up  charges  against  the  boys." 

3  Charles  P.  Sample  was  discharged  because  he  owed  a  debt  of  ten 
dollars  for  a  cloak  for  his  sister,  but  Harry  Crane,  appointed  by  Jones, 
who  owed  forty -seven  dollars,  was  retained.  Jones  told  the  widow  to  whom 
he  owed  the  money  that  he  had  no  power  to  turn  Crane  off  if  he  didn't 
pay  it. 

♦As  in  the  case  of  Wilmington  who  was  removed  without  cause,  but 
when  an  investigation  was  demanded,  a  charge  was  trumped  up  that  he 


THE  FEDERAL  SERVICE  IN  INDIANA  43 

There  were  many  curious  characters  among  the  new  ap- 
pointees, for  instance  a  negro,  Alfred  Harrison,  whose  auto- 
graph letter  was  shown,  in  which  he  promised  to  let  a  client's 
suit  go  by  default  in  consideration  of  ten  dollars  to  be  paid 
in  advance.  Another  was  still  warm  in  the  service  when  he 
was  detected  stealing  a  registered  letter,  pleaded  guilty,  and 
was  sentenced.  Another  carrier  who  passed  the  examina- 
tion creditably  could  not  read  the  superscriptions  of  his 
letters,  and  had  to  be  removed  from  his  route  and  set  to  col- 
lecting mail.     He  was  a  politician  of  long  standing. 

Another  carrier  was  appointed  who  misdelivered  a  letter 
and  when  complaint  was  made  answered:  **I  leave  just  such 
mail  here  as  I  like;  if  you  don't  like  it  you  may  go  to  hell." 
Yet  the  man  was  retained. 

The  recapitulation  showed  that  in  the  unclassified  service 
all  were  succeeded  by  Democrats;  and  in  the  classified  ser- 
vice, of  seventy-one  former  incumbents  thirty-six  were  forced 
out,  and  forty-three  Democrats  appointed.  The  effect  upon 
the  service  had  been  most  injurious.  Complaints  of  letters 
misdirected,  engagements  lost,  and  of  important  mail  matter 
misdelivered  were  made  almost  every  day. 

Mr.  Jones  said  publicly  of  the  civil  service  law,  "I  despise 
it,"  and  the  inquiry  naturally  arose,  "Why  is  he  permitted 
to  remain  there  to  nullify  it?" 

But  the  administration  of  the  Indianapolis  post  office,  bad 
as  it  was,  was  better  than  that  of  the  remaining  federal  ser- 
vice in  Indiana.  Here  there  had  been  a  clean  sweep  every- 
where, except  in  the  railway  mail  service,  where  although 
some  Republicans  remained,  the  changes  had  been  very 
numerous  and  the  service  had  been  thrown  into  disorder. 

Page  after  page  of  Mr.  Swift's  report  were  filled  with  illus- 

had  acted  as  challenger  at  the  last  Presidential  election.  This  was  signed 
by  six  persons,  one  of  whom  afterwards  stated  that  he  did  not  know  what 
he  signed.  The  actual  challenger  proved  that  Wilmington  was  absent, 
and  the  books  at  Wilmington's  office  showed  that  he  was  there  and  not  at 
the  polls  during  election  day.  This  was  a  charge  against  a  Republican. 
Yet  Henry  R.  Browning,  one  of  the  new  appointees,  worked  actively  at  a 
primary,  made  motions  and  speeches,  and  had  a  fight  with  one  Hennessey, 
yet  still  remained  in  office. 


44      INVESTIGATIONS  OF  FEDERAL  SERVICE 

trations  by  the  score  of  officeholders  whose  appointments 
were  due  to  Congressmen  and  who  took  the  most  active  and 
unscrupulous  part  in  political  movements  for  the  renomina- 
tion  of  the  Congressmen  by  whom  they  were  appointed. 

Mr.  Swift  after  contrasting  the  facts  found  with  Mr. 
Cleveland's  promises  thus  concluded  his  report. 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  task  for  those  civil  service  reformers  who  had  a 
steadfast  faith  that  every  promise  would  be  kept,  to  examine  the  work 
done  and  report  the  truth;  but  their  sincerity  is  on  trial.  Besides  to  stand 
silent  now  would  impose  silence  when  some  other  party  succeeds  to  the 
national  administration.  The  truth  must  be  stated  plainly.  In  Indiana 
civil  service  reform  has  been  disgraced  and  made  contemptible. 

On  September  13,  1888,  Mr.  Swift  was  examined  and  on 
the  loth  of  October,  1888,  the  committee  reported.  It 
found  in  a  general  way  the  truth  of  Mr.  Swift's  statements 
and  declared  that  the  system  of  secret  charges  flourished  in 
Indiana. 

Senator  Blackburn,  a  Democratic  member  who  had  said 
in  the  Senate  that  what  I  had  told  the  committee  was  '*the 
unsworn  statement  of  a  tramp"  now  prepared  and  published 
a  minority  report,  which  said:  *'The  only  two  persons,  mis- 
named witnesses,  who  came  to  assist  the  committee  and  whose 
remarks  and  exhibits  submitted  to  it  comprehend  the  entire 
'  investigation '  of  the  civil  service  in  Indiana  were  William 
Dudley  Foulke  and  L.  B.  Swift,  neither  of  whom  are  connected 
with  the  service,  neither  of  whom  spoke  from  personal  knowl- 
edge, and  neither  of  whom  could  testify  to  the  truth  or  falsity 
of  the  charges  made. " 

I  immediately  addressed  to  Senator  Blackburn  who  had 
prepared  this  minority  report  an  open  letter  which  was  quite 
generally  published,  containing  among  other  things  the  follow- 
ing observations. 

You  criticize  the  statements  made  by  Lucius  B.  Swift  and  myself  as 
b<eing  merely  hearsay.  .  .  . 

I  made  a  list  of  all  the  cases  I  examined,  classifying  them,  and  sub- 
mitted it  to  the  President  personally  and  learned  from  his  own  lips  that  he 
approved  of  this  system  of  removals  upon  secret  charges  preferred  by 
unknown  accusers,  without  any  opportunity  for  defense  or  explanation. 


THE  FEDERAL  SERVICE  IN  INDIANA         45 

The  original  correspondence  was  left  in  the  hands  of  your  committee  for 
many  weeks.  The  summary  of  the  answers  was  placed  in  the  hands  of 
the  President  by  me.  Would  you  kindly  point  out  to  me  any  form  of 
investigation  less  open  to  the  imputation  of  being  hearsay? 

You  say  "rumors  and  suspicions  may  fittingly  lead  to  preliminary  in- 
vestigations by  grand  juries,  and  other  intermediate  bodies  may  initi- 
ate proceedings  upon  them,  but  neither  in  judicial  trials  nor  committee 
investigations  have  they  ever  been  admissible  as  the  foimdation  of  judg- 
ment." If  you  believe  this,  what  must  be  your  opinion  of  the  adminis- 
tration which  you  are  supporting  in  requiring  charges  to  be  filed  for  the 
removal  of  officers  upon  the  ground  that  they  have  been  guilty  of  some 
violation  of  duty,  and  then  regarding  the  mere  charge,  imsustained  by 
proof  and  often  hearsay  in  its  character  as  well  as  false,  as  the  sole  founda- 
tion for  the  judgment  of  the  administration  in  removing  the  persons 
accused? 

This  ended  our  experience  with  the  Senate  committee. 
But  the  abuses  disclosed,  together  with  those  which  had  oc- 
curred in  other  States,  had  a  very  considerable  influence  on 
public  opinion  in  the  campaign  for  the  Presidency,  and  were 
undoubtedly  among  the  factors  which  led  to  Mr.  Cleveland's 
defeat.^ 

^  Our  Indiana  Civil  Service  Reform  Association  had  very  efficient 
support  in  the  Civil  Service  Chronicle,  a  monthly  periodical  edited  by  Lucius 
B.  Swift.  This  paper  discussed  the  merit  system  from  quite  a  dififerent 
angle  from  that  of  investigations  and  reports.  It  contained  (besides 
able  editorials)  extracts  from  the  press  all  over  the  country  of  spoils  news. 
A  single  item  of  such  news  will  attract  little  observation  but  when  a  great 
number  are  brought  together  in  mass  from  every  side  they  present  a  con- 
crete argument  sometimes  impressive,  sometimes  ridiculous,  of  monstrous 
abuses  in  the  patronage  system  so  that  the  dullest  could  realize  what 
that  system  really  means.  "It  was  like  a  well  placed  machine  gun  on  the 
enemy's  flank."  In  this  work  Mr.  Swift  was  ably  assisted  by  Mrs.  Swift, 
by  whom  indeed  the  greater  part  of  the  labor  of  collecting  and  classif3dng 
these  data  was  performed.  The  paper  had  really  a  profound  influence 
not  only  in  Indiana  but  elsewhere.  It  was  continued  down  to  the  end 
of  the  administration  of  President  Harrison. 

/ 

/ 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  CIVIL   SERVICE   UNDER  HARRISON 

As  we  have  already  seen  the  Independents  of  Indiana  were 
greatly  dissatisfied  with  the  administration  of  Mr.  Cleveland 
and  they  nearly  all  opposed  him  in  the  campaign  of  1888. 
We  regarded  the  question  of  the  civil  service  as  far  more  vital 
than  the  tariff  and  we  were  indignant  at  Mr.  Cleveland  for 
setting  it  aside  and  devoting  his  exclusive  attention  to  this 
later  born  child  of  his  political  fancy,  since  he  was  elected, 
not  as  a  tariff  reformer,  but  as  an  administrative  reformer. 
Moreover  as  chief  executive  he  was  responsible  for  the  civil 
service  while  the  tariff  was  a  legislative  question  in  which 
his  responsibility  was  partial  only  and  indirect. 

In  addition  to  our  dissatisfaction  with  Mr.  Cleveland  we 
were  led  to  support  General  Harrison  by  the  strongest  as- 
surances on  his  part,  both  in  public,  as  a  member  of  the 
United  States  Senate,  and  personally,  that  he  would  support 
the  competitive  system.  As  early  as  1885  while  our  Indiana 
Civil  Service  Reform  Association  was  investigating  the 
abuses  at  the  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  and  considering  the 
system  of  secret  removals  by  President  Cleveland,  I  received 
from  him  the  following  autograph  letter : 

Indianapolis,  Oct.  14,  1885. 
Hon.  W.  D.  Foulke,  Richmond,  Ind. 
My  Dear  Sir: 
I  was  sorry  indeed  not  to  see  you  when  you  called  on  the  day  of  your 
Civil  Service  meeting.     If  it  had  been  possible  I  would  have  attended 
the  meeting  in  the  evening,  tho'  knowing  from  our  talk  some  of  your  plans, 
it  was  perhaps  as  well  that  I  was  not  there  to  support  your  proposition  to 
look  into  some  of  the  removals  in  this  State.     Some  of  the  gentlemen 
present  were  very  sensitive.     I  am  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  civil 

46 


THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON       47 

service  reform  and  do  not  know  any  field  that  needs  work  more  than 
our  own  State.  It  will  give  me  great  pleasure  to  aid  in  any  way  I  can 
a  movement  to  secure  legislation  upon  that  subject  in  our  next  Legisla- 
ture. We  ought  to  begin  with  the  Benevolent  Institutions  and  take 
advantage  of  the  indignation  that  has  been  aroused  by  the  low  partisan 
management  which  the  Democratic  party  has  imposed  upon  some  of 
them.  I  would  not  attempt  too  much  at  once  for  there  is  absolutely  no 
civil  service  sentiment  in  the  democracy  of  this  State  and  not  as  much 
as  there  ought  to  be  in  our  own  party.  .  .  . 

Very  truly  yours, 

Benj.  Harrison. 

There  were  a  number  of  us  who  took  a  very  active  part  in 
the  campaign,  detailing  the  abuses  in  both  Federal  and  State 
administration,  and  our  efforts  were  not  without  influence. 
But  while  our  Indiana  reformers  generally  supported  Mr. 
Harrison,  this  was  not  true  of  the  independents  in  the  East. 
The  most  prominent  of  these,  George  William  Curtis,  Carl 
Schurz,  and  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  as  well  as  many  others,  still 
remained  faithful  to  Mr.  Cleveland.  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Curtis 
on  the  subject  and  received  the  following  answer: 

West  New  Brighton,  Staten  Island,  N.  Y. 

June  28,  1888. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Poulke: 

I  have  your  note  and  I  thought  of  you  when  I  saw  that  Harrison  was 
nominated.  But  the  evident  tone  of  the  Convention,  the  present  leader- 
ship and  spirit  of  the  Republican  party,  and  its  outrageous  platform, 
will  prevent  me  from  supporting  General  Harrison. 

McKinley  put  in  my  plank,  as  he  did  four  years  ago,  to  catch  reformers. 
Then  they  put  Blaine  upon  it  to  show  their  sincerity.  Now  they  sneer 
at  those  of  us  who  did  not  keep  our  pledges  to  reform  by  voting  for  Blaine 
and  say  that,  nevertheless,  they  will  keep  theirs.  And  this  in  a  Conven- 
tion where  there  was  no  more  mention  or  purpose  of  reform,  than  of  tem- 
perance legislation.  That  is  the  measure  of  the  party  pressure  upon 
General  Harrison  and  as  I  do  not  suppose  he  has  any  stronger  convictions 
upon  the  subject  than  the  President  or  firmer  will  to  enforce  them,  I  could 
not  swallow  the  platform  upon  the  shadowy  chance  of  Harrison's  improve- 
ment upon  Cleveland.  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  he  were  elected,  to 
see  Blaine  Secretary  of  State  and  Sherman  of  the  Treasury,  or  at  least 
the  ofifer,  to  both. 

After  my  address,  Seth  Low  wrote  me  hoping  that  we  could  pull  together 
for  a  good  Republican  upon  a  good  platform.  But  he  has  promptly 
annotmced  that  he  shall  support  Cleveland.     One  of  my  best  Republi- 


48        THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

can  neighbors  told  me  last  evening  of  the  general  Republican  dissatis- 
faction with  the  platform  and  the  party  management  and  of  his  friends 
who  declare  for  Cleveland  and  I  know  other  such. 

I  am  very  sorry  that  we  take  different  views  of  the  campaign,  but  I 
console  myself  with  thinking  that  our  purpose  is  the  same. 

Please  give  my  kindest  regards  to  Mr.  Swift  when  you  see  him  and  believe 
me  always 

Very  truly  yours, 

George  William  Curtis. 

I  afterwards  visited  Mr.  Curtis  at  his  home  in  New  Brighton 
and  reminded  him  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  failures  and  of  the 
abominable  system  of  removals  on  secret  charges  he  had  in- 
stituted. I  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  platform 
he  had  criticized  contained  in  respect  to  civil  service  the  very 
words  that  he  himself  had  written,  that  Harrison  had  made 
the  promises  his  own,  and  that  he  had  always  been  a  man 
of  his  word.  Yet  I  could  not  convince  Mr.  Curtis.  He  evi- 
dently distrusted  Harrison  and  he  added  that  the  extreme 
high  tariff  plank  of  the  Republican  platform  also  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  support  that  party. 

After  a  strenuous  campaign,  in  which  Mr.  Cleveland's 
shortcomings  were  well  ventilated,  General  Harrison  suc- 
ceeded in  carrying  his  own  State  as  well  as  the  country  at 
large.  He  was  to  be  our  next  President.  What  then  was  to 
be  the  attitude  of  the  civil  service  reformers  who  had  sup- 
ported him?  Evidently  it  was  our  duty  to  apply  to  his 
administration  the  same  standard  of  official  action  that  we 
had  applied  to  the  administration  of  Mr.  Cleveland  and  in  my 
address  as  president  of  the  Indiana  Association  at  its  annual 
meeting  January  3,  1889,  I  discussed  in  somewhat  radical 
terms  the  meaning  of  the  promises  of  the  Republican  party  and 
insisted  upon  an  administration  in  which  not  only  should  the 
law  be  generally  enforced  and  extended  but  in  which  merit  and 
fitness  and  not  political  considerations  should  be  the  deter- 
mining motive  in  all  appointments. 

On  the  day  this  was  delivered  I  met  General  Harrison  on  the 
street  and  told  him  I  intended  to  consider  the  meaning  of  the 
civil  service  clauses  of  the  platform  upon  which  he  said,  "I 
may  want  you  for  Civil  Service  Commissioner  and  I  hope  you 


THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON       49 

will  not  say  anything  to  make  that  impossible."  These  words 
appeared  to  me  of  sinister  omen  and  I  answered  that  I  did  not 
know  whether  that  appointment  would  be  possible  in  any 
event.  No  modification  of  the  address  was  made  in  con- 
sequence of  the  warning.^ 

Right  at  the  beginning  of  Mr.  Harrison's  administration 
came  his  first  significant  defection.  John  Wanamaker,  the 
distinguished  merchant  of  Philadelphia,  had  been  engaged  in 
raising  funds  for  the  Republican  campaign  and  had  succeeded 
in  securing  several  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  place  of 
Postmaster-General  in  the  new  Cabinet  was  now  demanded 
on  his  behalf  and  it  seemed  evident  that  this  place,  if  given  to 
him,  would  be  bestowed  as  a  reward  for  securing  these  con- 
tributions since  he  had  not  previously  been  prominent  in 
public  life  and  would  hardly  have  been  thought  of  were  it  not 
for  this  financial  service.  Vigorous  protests  were  made  yet 
Mr.  Wanamaker  was  appointed.  His ''appointment  caused 
scandal  at  the  outset  and  his  subsequent  career  justified  the 
unfavorable  opinion  then  formed  of  him. 

President  Harrison  in  his  inaugural  retreated  a  long  way 
from  the  advanced  position  taken  by  the  platform  and  in  his 
letter  of  acceptance.  He  said  that  the  heads  of  departments 
would  be  expected  to  enforce  the  law,  a  thing  they  were  bound 
to  do,  and  continued,  "Beyond  this  obvious  duty  I  hope  to  do 
something  to  extend  the  service.  Retrospect  will  be  a  safer 
basis  of  judgment  than  promises."  But  the  promises  had 
been  already  made  and  it  was  not  merely  to  do  "something" 
but  to  do  everything  possible.  "Some  extensions  of  the 
classified  list, "  he  said,  "are  necessary  and  desirable."  But 
it  was  not  merely  "some  extensions  "  which  he  had  promised  to 
make  but  extensions  to  every  office  to  which  this  system  could 

^  One  month  after  this  annual  meeting  a  conference  of  civil  service 
reformers  was  held  at  Baltimore.  In  the  evening  at  a  public  meeting  at 
which  Mr.  Charles  J.  Bonaparte  presided,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Richard 
Henry  Dana,  and  I  delivered  addresses.  I  followed  the  same  line  of  dis- 
cussion as  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Indiana  Association.  This  address, 
entitled  "What  have  Civil  Reformers  a  Right  to  Expect  from  the 
Republican  Party,"  will  be  found  in  Appendix  II. 
4 


50       THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

properly  be  applied  as  well  as  the  observance  of  the  spirit 
of  reform  in  all  executive  appointments.  Upon  this  latter 
promise  the  President  had  now  become  entirely  silent. 

A  short  time  before  the  election,  Mr.  Elijah  Halford  (who 
afterwards  became  the  President's  secretary)  said  to  me,  "The 
occupant  of  the  White  House  lives  in  a  fool's  paradise.  He  is 
surrounded  by  sycophants,  flatterers,  and  office  seekers,  takes 
their  opinions  for  the  opinion  of  the  country,  and  has  no  idea 
of  the  great  public  sentiment  beyond."  Only  a  month  or 
two  after  Mr.  Harrison's  inauguration,  when  this  gentleman 
had  himself  become  a  dweller  in  this  charmed  region,  he 
gravely  told  me  that  public  sentiment  had  recently  gone  back 
a  long  way  in  regard  to  civil  service  reform!  I  could  not 
help  thinking  of  the  fool's  paradise,  of  the  herd  of  office 
seekers  immediately  around  the  President  which  shut  out  the 
view  of  the  great  people  beyond.  For  the  clamor  of  politicians 
gives  no  indication  of  public  sentiment  on  the  subject  of 
patronage.  On  other  questions  they  study  the  currents  of 
popular  opinion  with  much  care.  The  average  politician  is  a 
great  adept  in  Huxley's  coach-dog  theory,  which  is  '*to  find 
out  first  which  way  the  coach  is  going  and  then  run  ahead  and 
bark  loud."  But  patronage  is  the  mainspring  of  his  political 
action.  Office  is  what  he  is  doing  these  things  for,  and  in 
regard  to  the  distribution  of  the  offices  it  is  his  own  cause 
he  pleads  and  his  own  desires  which  he  represents  as  the 
views  of  the  people. 

Another  illustration  of  Republican  backsliding  after  Harri- 
son became  President  was  in  the  railway  mail  service.  After 
the  election  had  gone  against  him,  President  Cleveland  had 
made  a  really  valuable  extension  to  the  classified  system  by 
including  in  it  this  branch  of  the  service.  It  is  never  hard  for 
an  outgoing  administration  thus  to  classify  additional  posi- 
tions and  thus  give  greater  permanency  of  tenure  to  those  who 
have  been  appointed  while  that  administration  was  in  power. 
The  inclusion  in  this  case  was  made  by  executive  order  on 
January  4,  1889,  and  the  classification  was  to  take  place  March 
15th,  almost  immediately  after  the  inauguration  of  Mr. 
Harrison.    But  the  Civil  Service  Commission  was  unable,  with 


THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON       51 

the  limited  force  at  its  command,  to  make  the  classification  in 
time,  so  President  Harrison  postponed  the  taking  effect  of  the 
order  until  May  ist.  In  the  meantime  the  Republicans  who 
had  now  come  into  power  improved  the  shining  hours  by 
removing  Democrats  and  filling  the  places  as  rapidly  as  they 
could  with  men  of  their  own  faith  and  President  Harrison  did 
Httle  to  stop  this  loot  of  the  service,  which  was  widespread, 
although  not  complete,  when  the  places  were  finally  classified. 

This  was  followed  by  other  acts  which  gave  great  dissatis- 
faction to  civil  service  reformers.  Mr.  H.  G.  Pearson,  the 
postmaster  of  New  York,  who  had  administered  the  law  with 
fideHty  in  that  great  office  and  who,  although  a  Republican, 
had  been  reappointed  by  Mr.  Cleveland  on  account  of  his 
eminent  services,  was  displaced  by  Mr.  Harrison,  and  Mr.  Van 
Cott,  a  politician,  was  appointed  in  his  stead. 

Silas  Burt,  who  had  distinguished  himself  in  like  manner  as 
Surveyor  of  the  Port  in  New  York  and  had  enforced  the  law 
impartially,  was  also  separated  from  the  service  to  make  way 
for  another  politician;  and  at  a  later  time  Mr.Leverett  Salton- 
stall.  Collector  of  Customs  at  Boston,  who  had  maintained 
the  merit  system  with  signal  ability,  was  removed  in  a  similar 
manner. 

Moreover  President  Harrison  made  a  number  of  astonish- 
ingly bad  appointments,  for  instance,  that  of  Corporal  Tanner 
as  Commissioner  of  Pensions,  who  was  so  impossible  that  he 
soon  had  to  leave  and  was  succeeded  by  Greene  B.  Raum, 
under  whom  grave  scandals  also  occurred. 

J.  vS.  Clarkson  was  appointed  First  Assistant  Postmaster- 
General  and  commenced  turning  out  Democratic  Fourth 
Class  Postmasters  and  putting  in  Republicans,  at  the  rate  of 
about  thirty  thousand  a  year,  during  the  early  part  of  Harri- 
son's administration. 


ERRATUM 

Page  51,  third  line  from  foot,  for  Mahone  of  West  Virginia  read 
Mahone  of  Virginia. 


50       THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

properly  be  applied  as  well  as  the  observance  of  the  spirit 
of  reform  in  all  executive  appointments.  Upon  this  latter 
promise  the  President  had  now  become  entirely  silent. 

A  short  time  before  the  election,  Mr.  Elijah  Halford  (who 
afterwards  became  the  President's  secretary)  said  to  me,  "The 
occupant  of  the  White  House  lives  in  a  fool's  paradise.  He  is 
surrounded  by  sycophants,  flatterers,  and  office  seekers,  takes 
their  opinions  for  the  opinion  of  the  country,  and  has  no  idea 
of  the  great  public  sentiment  beyond."  Only  a  month  or 
two  after  Mr.  Harrison's  inauguration,  when  this  gentleman 
had  himself  become  a  dweller  in  this  charmed  region,  he 
gravely  told  me  that  public  sentiment  had  recently  gone  back 
a  long  way  in  regard  to  civil  service  reform!  I  could  not 
help  thinking  of  the  fool's  paradise,  of  the  herd  of  office 
seekers  immediately  around  the  President  which  shut  out  the 
view  of  the  great  people  beyond.  For  the  clamor  of  politicians 
gives  no  indication  of  public  sentiment  on  the  subject  of 
patronage.  On  other  questions  they  study  the  currents  of 
popular  opinion  with  much  care.  The  average  politician  is  a 
great  adept  in  Huxley's  coach-dog  theory,  which  is  "to  find 
out  first  which  way  the  coach  is  going  and  then  run  ahead  and 
bark  loud."  But  patronage  is  the  mainspring  of  his  political 
action.  Office  is  what  he  is  doing  these  things  for,  and  in 
regard  to  the  distribution  of  the  offices  it  is  his  own  cause 
he  pleads  and  his  own  desires  which  he  represents  as  the 
views  of  the  people. 

Another  illustration  of  Republican  backsliding  after  Harri- 
son became  President  was  in  the  railway  mail  service.  After 
the  election  had  gone  against  him,  President  Cleveland  had 
made  a  really  valuable  extension  to  the  classified  system  by 
including  in  it  this  branch  of  the  service.  It  is  never  hard  for 
an  outgoings  administration  thus  to  classify  additional  posi- 


THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON       51 

the  limited  force  at  its  command,  to  make  the  classification  in 
time,  so  President  Harrison  postponed  the  taking  effect  of  the 
order  until  May  ist.  In  the  meantime  the  Republicans  who 
had  now  come  into  power  improved  the  shining  hours  by 
removing  Democrats  and  filling  the  places  as  rapidly  as  they 
could  with  men  of  their  own  faith  and  President  Harrison  did 
little  to  stop  this  loot  of  the  service,  which  was  widespread, 
although  not  complete,  when  the  places  were  finally  classified. 

This  was  followed  by  other  acts  which  gave  great  dissatis- 
faction to  civil  service  reformers.  Mr.  H.  G.  Pearson,  the 
postmaster  of  New  York,  who  had  administered  the  law  with 
fidelity  in  that  great  office  and  who,  although  a  Republican, 
had  been  reappointed  by  Mr.  Cleveland  on  account  of  his 
eminent  services,  was  displaced  by  Mr.  Harrison,  and  Mr.  Van 
Cott,  a  politician,  was  appointed  in  his  stead. 

Silas  Burt,  who  had  distinguished  himself  in  like  manner  as 
Surveyor  of  the  Port  in  New  York  and  had  enforced  the  law 
impartially,  was  also  separated  from  the  service  to  make  way 
for  another  politician;  and  at  a  later  time  Mr.Leverett  Salton- 
stall.  Collector  of  Customs  at  Boston,  who  had  maintained 
the  merit  system  with  signal  ability,  was  removed  in  a  similar 
manner. 

Moreover  President  Harrison  made  a  nimiber  of  astonish- 
ingly bad  appointments,  for  instance,  that  of  Corporal  Tanner 
as  Commissioner  of  Pensions,  who  was  so  impossible  that  he 
soon  had  to  leave  and  was  succeeded  by  Greene  B.  Ramn, 
under  whom  grave  scandals  also  occurred. 

J.  S.  Clarkson  was  appointed  First  Assistant  Postmaster- 
General  and  commenced  turning  out  Democratic  Fourth 
Class  Postmasters  and  putting  in  Republicans,  at  the  rate  of 
about  thirty  thousand  a  year,  during  the  early  part  of  Harri- 
son's administration. 

Moreover,  the  President  seemed  to  be  greatly  under  the 
influence  of  three  of  the  most  unscrupulous  bosses  in  the  Re- 
publican party,  Piatt  of  New  York,  Quay  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  Mahone  of*4fei^  Virginia.  All  these  things  awakened 
lively  criticism  in  the  independent  press. 

In  another  respect,  however,   Mr.  Harrison  justified  the 


52        THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

expectations  of  the  reformers.  He  appointed  on  the  Civil 
Service  Commission  Theodore  Roosevelt,  one  of  our  foremost 
protagonists  and  Governor  Thompson  of  South  Carolina,  a 
high-minded  Southern  gentleman  who  was  unflinching  in 
support  of  the  merit  system.  These  men  with  Charles  Lyman 
(who  held  over  from  the  preceding  administration),  now 
constituted  the  Commission  and  everything  was  done  by 
Messrs.  Roosevelt  and  Thompson  which  was  humanly  possible 
to  enforce  the  law.  They  insisted  upon  the  utmost  publicity 
and  opened  the  eligible  lists  to  general  inspection.  In  many 
places,  particularly  in  the  South,  there  was  a  general  disbelief 
in  the  fairness  of  the  examinations  and  they  caused  notices 
to  be  spread  broadcast  over  the  country  that  no  discrimination 
would  be  made  in  favor  of  one  party  against  the  other.  By 
this  means  they  secured  such  confidence  that  the  examinations 
were  well  attended.  Where  violations  of  the  law  were  brought 
to  their  notice  they  were  prompt  to  correct  them,  traveling 
over  the  country  to  New  York,  Indianapolis,  Troy,  Milwaukee, 
Boston,  Atlanta,  New  Orleans,  and  elsewhere,  investigating 
abuses. 

I  well  remember  the  occasion  when  Mr.  Roosevelt  came  to 
Indianapolis.  It  was  in  June,  1889.  I  had  met  him  before  in 
New  York  and  at  Baltimore  but  it  was  in  Indianapolis  that 
our  real  acquaintance  began.  We  took  a  drive  together  and 
discussed  many  things.  He  had  just  completed  one  of  his 
volumes  of  The  Winning  of  the  West  which  was  at  that  time 
his  magnum  opus  and  we  talked  of  this.  He  also  spoke  of 
what  he  called  the  "Cleveland  Cult"  a  sort  of  blind  adoration 
by  the  eastern  mugwumps  which  did  not  permit  them  to  see 
the  defects  of  his  administration.  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself, 
although  he  had  a  good  opinion  of  the  ex-President,  could  not 
tolerate  this  excessive  sycophancy  on  the  part  of  his  inde- 
pendent supporters. 

The  occasion  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  visit  to  Indianapolis  was 
this :  President  Harrison  had  appointed  as  postmaster  to  that 
city,  Mr.  Wm.  Wallace,  a  man  of  excellent  character  but 
entirely  inexperienced,  who  said  he  intended  to  obey  the 
civil  service  law  but  frankly  declared  that  Republicans  would 


THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON       53 

be   given   the  preference   whenever  a  vacancy  was   to   be 
filled! 

Moreover,  the  assistant  postmaster  was  Mr.  E.  P.Thompson, 
a  Republican  politician  who  had  been  reinstated  and  who  soon 
began  to  use  the  office  for  political  purposes.  Complaint  was 
made  to  the  Federal  Commission,  which  investigated  the  case, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  conducting  the  examination  of  the  witnesses. 
Two  men  who  had  been  discharged  some  years  previously 
had  been  put  back  into  places  which  could  only  be  filled 
from  the  eligible  lists  and  had  already  been  serving  illegally 
nearly  two  months.  Mr.  Roosevelt  exclaimed,  "These  men 
must  be  discharged  to-day"  and  it  was  done. 

Another  case  was  that  of  a  man  who  had  been  reinstated  by 
Mr.  Wallace  although  he  had  been  discharged  by  a  former 
postmaster  for  operating  a  gambling  room.  Thompson 
attempted  to  defend  this  reinstatement  on  the  ground  that 
the  man  was  only  engaged  in  "a  little  game  of  five  cent  ante 
with  friends"  but  the  proof  was  clear  and  the  postmaster  was 
directed  to  sever  at  once  the  connection  of  this  man  with  the 
office. 

The  investigation  had  an  admirable  effect.  After  it  the  law 
was  well  observed  and  within  the  classified  service  appoint- 
ments were  made  without  reference  to  politics  so  that  two 
years  later,  when  Postmaster  Wallace  died,  his  execution  of 
the  civil  service  law  had  been  a  model  of  fairness  and  justice. 

The  conduct  of  the  Commissioners  in  sustaining  the  law  so 
exasperated  the  Republican  spoilsmen  that  charges  were 
preferred  against  them,  instigated  principally  by  Mr.  Hatton 
of  the  Washington  Post  and  an  investigation  was  held  by  a 
Congressional  Committee  from  which  however  Mr.  Roosevelt 
and  Governor  Thompson  came  out  with  flying  colors.  In  this 
investigation  Mr.  Wanamaker  attempted  to  discredit  Mr. 
Roosevelt  by  testif3dng  that  the  Commissioner  had  sought  to 
secure  his  consent  to  the  appointment  of  a  Mr.  Shidy  who  had 
been  coerced  by  Postmaster  Paul  of  Milwaukee  into  tampering 
with  examination  papers.  Shidy  as  secretary  of  the  Civil 
Service  Board  had  done  this  with  the  concurrence  of  the  other 
members,  but  had  afterwards  turned  State's  evidence  under 


54        THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  promise  of  protection.  Then  he  had  been 
dismissed  from  the  service  while  the  other  members  of  the 
board  who  had  concealed  the  offense  had  been  retained,  and 
Roosevelt  sought  to  get  Mr.  Wanamaker's  consent  to  secure 
for  Shidy  another  position.  Wanamaker  testified  that  Roose- 
velt had  recommended  him  as  a  "worthy  man"  but  was 
confronted  with  the  fact  that  the  public  reports  of  the  Com- 
mission which  he  admitted  he  had  r^ad,  showed  exactly  what 
the  circtmistances  were. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  was  much  exasperated  by  this  testimony. 
I  recollect  one  evening  when  dining  at  his  home  that  he  dis- 
missed an  emissary  of  Mr.  Wanamaker  with  the  statement, 
"You  may  tell  the  Postmaster-General  from  me  that  I  don't 
like  him  for  two  reasons,  in  the  first  place  because  he  has  a 
very  sloppy  mind,  and  in  the  second  place  because  he  doesn't 
speak  the  truth." 

JOHN  WANAMAKER 

I  had  occasion  later  to  make  my  own  commentary  upon  this 
text.  As  chairman  of  a  committee  of  the  National  Civil  Service 
Reform  League  to  investigate  the  condition  of  the  civil  service 
under  President  Harrison,  I  desired  to  see  the  record  of  re- 
movals and  appointments  of  postmasters,  and  addressed  a 
letter  to  Mr.  Wanamaker  asking  for  an  inspection  of  the  files 
of  the  Postal  Bulletin  containing  this  record — files  which  were 
in  reality  public  property  as  the  newspapers  were  furnished 
from  day  to  day  with  a  statement  of  their  contents. 

The  Postmaster-General  asked  me  to  call  upon  him.  I  had 
already  criticized  him  in  a  communication  to  the  New  York 
Evening  Post  for  his  testimony  against  Mr.  Roosevelt,  and  he 
commenced  the  conversation  by  saying,  "Mr.  Foulke,  I 
suppose  I  ought  to  feel  angry  at  you,  because  you  have  de- 
liberately published  falsehoods  about  me.  But  I  do  not  feel 
angry.  "  I  inquired  immediately,  "What  have  I  said  that  was 
not  true?"  Then  he  tried  to  avoid  the  subject  by  saying, 
**  We  will  not  go  over  the  details,  because  I  don't  suppose  you 
meant  to  say  what  was  not  true. "    And  he  spoke  of  what  he 


JOHN  WANAMAKER  55 

was  pleased  to  call  Mr.  Roosevelt's  attack  upon  him,  adding, 
"The  trouble  with  civil  service  reformers  is  that  they  do  not 
consider  that  anybody  can  tell  the  truth  but  themselves." 

I  now  introduced  another  subject  of  difference. 

Soon  after  Mr.  Wanamaker  became  Postmaster-General, 
Mr.  Marshall  Gushing,  who  within  a  short  time  became  his 
private  secretary,  addressed  a  circular  letter  to  a  large  number 
of  men  in  pubHc  life  stating  that  he  was  making  inquiries  on 
behalf  of  a  Gabinet  officer  in  regard  to  civil  service  reform  and 
asking  why  both  parties  should  not  "abandon  their  insincere 
professions  for  the  law  and  have  the  patriotism  "  to  go  back  to 
the  old  system.  It  struck  me  as  remarkable,  I  said,  that  a 
Gabinet  officer  should  thus  declare  that  the  principles  of  the 
party  with  which  he  came  into  power  were  insincere  and  un- 
patriotic. Just  about  this  time  Mr.  Gushing  walked  into  the 
room.  Mr.  Wanamaker  said  he  did  not  know  of  a  letter  of 
that  kind.  I  produced  a  copy  and  showed  it  to  him.  He 
glanced  it  over  and  replied,  "But  this  letter  merely  says 
the  inquiry  was  made  in  behalf  of  a  Gabinet  officer.  It 
doesn't  say  it  was  made  in  my  behalf  and  Mr.  Gushing  was 
not  my  private  secretary  at  that  time."  "He  became  your 
private  secretary  soon  afterward,"  I  responded,  "and  it 
was  natural  to  infer  that  he  meant  you."  Mr.  Wanamaker 
at  first  seemed  disposed  to  argue  the  point.  I  thereupon 
turned  to  Mr.  Gushing  and  asked,  "Who  was  the  Gabinet 
officer  for  whom  you  wrote  that  letter?"  but  before  he  could 
utter  a  word  the  Postmaster-General  interposed  with,  "  Never 
mind,  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  it. "  I  now  turned  to  him 
and  said,  "  Mr.  Wanamaker,  this  letter  was  written  by  a  man 
who  shortly  afterwards  became  your  private  secretary  and 
when  I  ask  him  to  say  who  was  the  Gabinet  officer  for  whom  he 
wrote  it  you  won't  let  him  speak.  Don't  you  think  there  is  a 
pretty  strong  inference  that  he  meant  you?"  "Oh,  well," 
said  the  Postmaster-General,  "I  didn't  tell  him  he  should  not 
answer  you.  I  have  nothing  to  conceal.  He  is  at  liberty  to 
tell  you  what  you  want  to  know."  "Then,  Mr.  Gushing,"  said  I, 
"What  Gabinet  officer  was  it  for  whom  you  were  making  these 
inquiries?"  "I  was  making  them, "  he  answered,  "in  my  own 


56        THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

way;  but  the  officer  for  whom  I  was  writing  happened  to  be 
the  Postmaster-General."  "It  seems,  Mr.  Wanamaker, "  I 
remarked,  "that  my  inference  was  correct. "  "I  don't  know," 
answered  the  Postmaster-General,  "how  that  letter  was 
written.    I  never  saw  it  before." 

Mr.  Gushing  reminded  me  that  he  was  a  newspaper  man, 
and  said  that  he  was  trying  to  get  at  the  facts  and  resorted 
to  this  device  to  accomplish  his  purpose.  He  then  asked  me 
whether  I  did  not  myself  believe  that  the  parties  were  insincere 
in  their  platform  professions.  I  answered  that  I  did  not,  that 
I  thought  when  General  Harrison  was  elected,  he  intended  to 
carry  out  his  pledges  for  this  reform. 

There  was  another  rather  significant  incident  in  our  con- 
versation, Mr.  Wanamaker  referred  to  the  wisdom  of  having 
reliable  information  to  proceed  upon.  I  told  him  that  that 
was  the  very  reason  I  had  made  my  effort  to  inspect  the  authen- 
tic record  of  removals  and  appointments  and  remarked  that 
I  had  merely  asked  for  leave  to  consult  the  past  files  of  the 
Daily  Bulletin  which  contained  Hsts  of  the  post  office  changes 
and  other  material  facts.  "If  you  want  the  number  of  re- 
movals," he  said,  "we  shall  be  glad  to  give  them  to  you." 
"That  is  not  what  I  want, "  I  answered.  "I  want  to  look  over 
the  back  files  of  the  Bulletin.  I  have  some  of  them,  but  they 
do  not  extend  back  to  the  beginning  of  this  administration.  I 
want  to  see  the  earlier  ones."  "Well,"  said  he,  "I  can't  let 
you  see  them.  You  have  no  business  to  see  them.  "  "  But  you 
give  them  to  the  pubHc  press, "  I  argued.  He  assented.  * '  Then  " 
said  I,  "I  don't  understand  why  I  cannot  see  them."  "You 
cannot, "  was  all  the  response  he  made,  so  I  quitted  the  office. 

After  this  conversation  I  naturally  shared  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
opinion  of  the  Postmaster-General.* 

^  On  December  i6th,  of  this  year,  1889,  I  was  invited  to  address  the 
Commonwealth  Club  of  New  York  City  and  after  relating  to  that  body 
the  foregoing  experience  with  Mr.  Wanamaker  I  added,  "There  is  one  thing 
of  which  the  politicians  of  the  country  may  be  well  assured,  whether  or  not 
the  people  favor  civil  service  reform,  they  will  not  continue  to  have  con- 
fidence in  the  party  which  knowingly  with  its  eyes  open,  fails  to  perform  its 
solemn  promises.   There  is  something  more  immoral  in  this  than  even  in  the 


THE  INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE  57 

THE   INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE 

In  December,  1889,  a  committee  was  appointed  by  the 
Reform  League  to  investigate  the  condition  of  the  civil  service 
under  President  Harrison.' 

I  was  chairman  of  this  committee  and  was  placed  in  general 
charge  of  the  work.  The  results  of  our  investigation  were 
contained  in  six  reports  which  we  made  to  the  League,  em- 
bracing the  following  subjects:  first,  Congressional  Patronage; 
second,  the  Patent  Office;  third.  Presidential  Postmasters; 
fourth.  Removals  upon  Secret  Charges ;  fifth,  Political  Changes 
in  Post  offices;  sixth,  The  Census  Bureau. 

We  were  in  constant  communication  with  members  of  the 
Civil  Service  Commission,  especially  with  Mr.  Roosevelt  and 
Governor  Thompson  and  it  was  here  that  my  strong  personal 
friendship  with  Mr.  Roosevelt  began.  I  often  dined  with 
him  and  we  sometimes  took  excursions  together,  walks  in  the 
country  and  rows  upon  the  Potomac.  Some  of  the  pleasantest 
experiences  of  my  life  were  connected  with  this  investigation. 

CONGRESSIONAL  PATRONAGE 

Our  first  inquiries  were  addressed  to  Republican  members 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  asking  for  the  number  of 

spoils  system.  The  Republican  party  has  been  successful  in  the  past 
because  it  has  been  true  to  its  great  promises  and  plans — emancipation,  the 
preservation  of  the  Union,  enfranchisement,  payment  of  the  National 
debt — these  became  embodied  as  fixed  facts  in  the  history  of  our  country. 
The  party  was  as  good  as  its  word.  But  if  at  the  last  convention  it  has  in 
the  most  solemn  manner  made  a  distinct  pledge  to  the  people,  and  if  it 
fails  to  keep  that  promise  now,  the  people  will  know  the  value  of  every 
pledge  hereafter  made." 

» Charles  J.  Bonaparte  of  Baltimore,  Sherman  S.  Rogers  of  Buffalo, 
Richard  H.  Dana  of  Boston,  Wayne  MacVeagh  of  Philadelphia,  and  myself 
were  the  members  of  this  committee.  Four  of  us  out  of  the  five  had  voted 
for  Mr.  Harrison.  On  the  15th  of  February,  1890,  we  had  our  first  meeting 
in  Philadelphia  and  outlined  our  general  plan.  We  determined  to  estab- 
lish our  headquarters  at  Washington,  to  examine  the  records  of  the  various 
departments  and  to  address  communications  to  officials  removed  and  those 
appointed  in  all  parts  of  the  country;  to  interview  Congressmen  and  heads 
of  departments  as  to  the  changes  made  and  the  working  of  the  various 
branches  of  the  service  so  far  as  possible. 


58        THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

offices  in  which  the  appointments  depended  upon  them,  the 
number  of  applications  received  during  the  last  year  and  the 
amount  of  time  and  correspondence  required.  From  the  an- 
swers received  it  appeared  that  about  250  appointments 
depended  upon  each  of  the  Congressmen  and  that  the  average 
number  of  applications  to  each  was  about  1700;  that  the 
correspondence  involved  in  this  office  brokerage  was  enormous 
and  that  more  than  one  third  of  their  entire  time  was  devoted 
to  it.  In  the  meanwhile  their  proper  legislative  duties,  as 
appeared  from  the  Congressional  records,  were  neglected  so 
that  out  of  more  than  17,000  measures  introduced  less  than 
3500  were  finally  acted  upon  by  Congress,  either  one  way  or 
the  other. 

Our  conclusions  as  contained  in  our  report  on  Congressional 
Patronage  published  in  April,  1891,  were  as  follows. 

The  men  selected  are  chosen,  not  on  account  of  the  knowledge  of 
their  fitness  possessed  by  the  appointing  officer,  but  because  they  are 
recommended  by  certain  representatives  or  senators.  The  head  of  the 
department  or  bureau  feels  little  responsibility  for  their  acts.  It  often 
happens  that  he  is  not  at  liberty  to  discharge  an  inefficient  man,  lest 
he  may  offend  the  Congressman  whose  influence  secured  the  appoint- 
ment of  that  man.  The  Congressman,  on  the  other  hand,  does  not 
feel  the  responsibility  for  these  appointments,  for  he  is  not  nominally 
nor  legally  the  appointing  officer.  In  many  cases  it  is  not  known  on 
whose  recommendation  the  appointment  is  made.  This  system  "invades 
the  independence  of  the  executive  and  makes  him  less  responsible  for 
the  character  of  his  appointments.  It  impairs  the  efficiency  of  the 
legislator  by  diverting  him  from  his  proper  sphere  of  duties  and  in- 
volving him  in  the  intrigues  of  the  aspirants  for  office." 

Sometimes,  as  we  found  in  our  investigation,  members  of 
Congress  endeavored  to  avoid  the  responsibility  of  making 
appointments,  such  as  that  of  postmaster,  by  holding  informal 
elections  among  Republican  patrons  of  the  office.  An  amusing 
account  of  an  election  held  in  his  district  was  given  in  an 
interview  with  one  of  these  Representatives.    He  said: 


I  have  held  one  election  only  under  this  administration,  and  that  had  a 
most  disastrous  result.  It  resulted  in  several  men  losing  their  characters; 
one  or  two  were  turned  out  of  church,  and  all  v/as  turmoil  and  confusion. 


THE  PATENT  OFFICE  59 

Carri£^es  were  hired  to  bring  voters  fourteen  miles  distant,  and  citizens 
of  another  State  voted.  The  doors  of  the  polling  places  were  broken  in. 
Democrats  were  allowed  to  vote.  There  were  no  safeguards  about  the 
polls.  No  oaths  were  required,  and  there  was  no  respect  for  the  election. 
The  judges  certified  the  election  of  one  man,  but  sent  a  statement  with  the 
certification  that  the  election  was  carried  by  fraud.  The  consequence  was, 
I  went  outside  for  the  postmaster  and  chose  a  man  who  had  not  voted  and 
took  no  part  in  the  fight.  He  moved  into  town  and  took  the  ofi&ce  (worth 
not  more  than  5^150  per  year);  but  they  would  have  torn  the  election 
nominee  to  pieces  if  I  had  recommended  him.  I  look  upon  these  elections 
as  a  party  disaster. 

THE  PATENT  OFFICE 

Some  two  months  later  we  issued  a  report  concerning  the 
Patent  Office.  The  beginning  of  the  administration  had 
found  this  Bureau  in  control  of  spoilsmen  who  held  all  the 
places  both  above  and  below  the  classified  list.  Mr.  Mont- 
gomery, the  first  Commissioner  who  had  been  appointed  by 
Mr.  Cleveland  entered  the  office  without  any  experience  in 
patent  law  and  appointed  his  brother  his  confidential  clerk  to 
distribute  the  subordinate  positions  among  the  friends  of 
influential  Congressmen.  The  Bureau  was  honeycombed  with 
politics  and  the  abuses  were  very  serious.  Later  in  his  ad- 
ministration President  Cleveland  transferred  the  Commissioner 
to  a  different  field  and  appointed  as  his  successor  Benton  J. 
Hall  of  Iowa,  who  devoted  his  energies  mainly  to  preserving 
the  remnants  of  good  service  from  further  inundations  but 
who  was  still  surrounded  by  many  incompetents  whom  he 
failed  to  discharge. 

President  Harrison  at  the  request  of  the  patent  bar  ap- 
pointed Mr.  Charles  H.  Mitchell  as  Commissioner,  a  man  of 
extensive  experience  and  recognized  standing  and  there  was  a 
decided  improvement.  Our  Committee  went  into  considerable 
detail  as  to  the  former  abuses  and  the  reforms  accomplished 
from  which  it  appeared  that  it  was  the  competitive  system 
applied  to  the  examiners  which  had  preserved  the  Bureau 
from  utter  demoralizat^'on  during  President  Cleveland's 
administration  and  it  was  the  extension  of  civil  service  reform 
tests  and  principles  which  had  improved  the  service  under  the 


6o         THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

Harrison  administration.  This  investigation  of  the  Patent 
Office  was  the  only  one  made  by  otir  committee  in  which  it 
appeared  that  any  improvement  had  been  made. 

PRESIDENTIAL  POSTMASTERS 

Our  committee  next  took  up  the  subject  of  Presidential 
Postmasters.  The  Congressional  Record  and  certain  reports 
of  the  Postmaster-General  gave  us  the  needed  information. 
From  these  it  appeared  that  nearly  64  per  cent,  of  these 
offices  were  changed  during  the  first  year  of  the  Harrison 
administration. 

The  statement  made  by  the  Post  Office  Department  however 
indicated  that  only  about  23  per  cent,  of  these  changes  had 
been  made  by  the  removal  of  the  incumbents,  the  remainder 
being  by  deaths,  resignations,  and  the  expirations  of  official 
terms.  The  number  of  deaths  was  very  few,  only  forty-eight 
in  all  and  we  now  proceeded  to  examine  whether  the  resigna- 
tions were  voluntary  or  compulsory  and  whether  the  removals 
were  really  to  secvu*e  a  better  service,  or  were  made  for  political 
reasons.  We  therefore  addressed  communications  both  to  the 
postmasters  displaced  and  to  the  new  appointees  asking  the 
causes  assigned  for  the  removals,  the  politics  in  each  case, 
what  political  services  had  been  rendered,  and  upon  whose 
recommendation  the  change  was  made. 

As  soon  as  we  commenced  making  these  inquiries,  First 
Assistant  Postmaster-General  Clarkson,  in  an  interview  pub- 
lished by  the  Associated  Press,  attempted  to  forestall  our 
investigation  by  giving  a  hint  to  the  new  appointees  that  they 
were  not  to  answer,  or  if  they  answered  what  the  tenor  of  their 
ansWer  was  to  be.    He  said: 

It  is  evidently  an  effort  to  get  statements  from  removed  and  disappointed 
officials  for  political  use,  and  some  of  the  letters  show  an  intention  to  try  to 
induce  the  new  postmaster  to  make  statements  of  defense  where  no  defense 
is  needed.  The  postmasters  seem  to  realize  that  they  have  reports  to  make 
only  to  their  superior  officers.  No  political  capital  can  be  made  out  of  these 
changes.  The  President  has  made  no  removals  except  for  cause, — for 
delinquency  in  official  duties,  inefficiency  of  service,  or  violation  of  law. 
He  has  refused  to  make  any  changes  for  partisan  reasons. 


REMOVALS  ON  SECRET  CHARGES  61 

The  answers  to  our  inquiries  however  showed  that  in  regard 
to  resignations  about  two  thirds  were  voluntary  and  one 
third  not  voluntary  but  were  requested  by  the  Congressman  of 
the  district  or  other  influential  parties  who  were  believed  to 
have  the  disposal  of  the  office  in  their  hands.  In  some  cases 
inducements  were  offered  in  the  shape  of  a  postponement  in 
the  time  for  the  change  or  the  offer  of  a  good  price  for  office 
fixtures.  Sometimes  the  resignation  was  procured  by  threats 
of  immediate  removal.  Our  committee  concluded  that  many 
of  these  so-called  resignations  were  not  such  in  fact  but  that 
the  changes  were  substantially  changes  for  political  purposes. 

Some  of  the  answers  we  received  to  our  inquiries  were 
amusing.  For  instance  a  western  editor  quoted  from  his 
letter  of  resignation,  sent  to  the  President,  in  which  he  said: 

I  am  moved  to  tender  you  my  resignation  because  of  the  anxiety  of  a 
barnyard  of  patriots  to  succeed  me.  I  believe  the  tariff  is  a  tax.  They  do 
not.  Therefore  they  are  of  your  own  kith  and  kindred,  and  he  who  provides 
not  for  his  own  household  is  worse  than  an  infidel.  I  am  told  that  you  are 
not  built  that  way.  The  boys  who  are  anxious  to  be  my  successor  are  very 
hungry;  they  have  been  feeding  on  icicles  and  shucks  for  four  long,  weary 
years;  the  official  calf  is  fat  and  they  yearn  to  taste  its  tender  joints.  They 
carried  torches,  drank  with  the  "coons,"  sang  Grandpa's  Hat  Will  Just  Fit 
Benny  and  did  divers  and  sundry  foolish  things,  none  of  which  they  would 
have  been  guilty  of  doing  had  they  not  scented  an  aroma  of  postmaster  on 
the  crisp  morning  air.  And  the  paeans  of  praise  which  they  sounded  when  it 
became  evident  that  you  "had  got  there  Eli"  will  ever  be  a  Sahara  in  my 
memory. 

REMOVALS  ON  SECRET  CHARGES 

Our  fourth  report  discussed  the  subject  of  removals  of 
presidential  postmasters  on  secret  charges.    On  this  we  said : 

Out  of  356  answers  received  to  our  questions  whether  or  not  any  cause 
for  the  removal  was  given  to  the  man  removed,  it  appeared  that  in  only 
47  cases  was  such  cause  assigned,  in  ten  cases  the  matter  was  disputed  and 
in  299  cases  it  appeared,  from  uncontradicted  statements,  that  the  incum- 
bent was  removed  without  any  cause  being  given. 

In  a  very  large  number  of  cases  he  solicited  information  from  the  Post 
Office  Department  as  to  the  character  of  the  charges;  but  this  information 
was  almost  invariably  refused.  If  he  ever  learned  what  the  charges  were, 
he  learned  it  by  private  inquiry  from  other  sources,  generally  from  hearsay 


62        THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

and  rumor  merely.  In  many  instances  the  new  appointee,  in  answer  to  our 
inquiry  as  to  the  causes  of  the  removal,  while  declining  to  state  these  causes 
himself,  refers  us  to  written  charges  on  file  in  the  department.  As  Mr. 
Wanamaker  tells  us  that  "all  papers  in  appointment  cases  have  invariably 
been  deemed  privileged  and  confidential"  and  as  the  postmasters  them- 
selves are  refused  access  to  the  charges  upon  which  they  are  removed,  but 
little  can  be  done  to  lift  the  veil  which  conceals  these  secret  accusations. 

Case  after  case  is  given  in  which  the  man  removed  asked  to 
be  informed  what  the  charges  were  and  to  be  given  an  oppor- 
tunity to  answer  them  which  he  failed  to  secure.  Clarkson 
writes :  "It  is  not  the  custom  of  the  Department  to  furnish  post- 
masters with  copies  of  charges."  In  answer  to  a  similar 
request,  Wanamaker  writes  another  postmaster  that  the 
change  was  made  '*  in  the  interest  of  better  mail  service." 

Many  similar  cases  were  adduced  and  in  conclusion  we  said : 

This  system  could  easily  be  abolished  if  the  inspector  of  the  department, 
previous  to  the  removal,  should  be  required  to  acquaint  the  officer  accused 
with  the  nature  of  the  charge  against  him  and  hear  what  he  had  to  say. 
If  such  a  vast  number  of  removals  were  not  made  for  purely  political  reasons 
this  would  not  be  by  any  means  an  impossible  or  even  a  difficult  task.  It  is 
only  because  the  energies  of  the  department  and  of  the  inspectors  are 
exhausted  in  an  improper  and  immoral  effort  to  turn  men  out  without  cause 
for  political  reasons  that  they  might  find  it  difficult  to  give  the  necessary 
time  to  an  investigation  of  charges,  where  publicity  would  be  some  guaran- 
tee that  they  were  honestly  made. 

It  would  be  just  as  absurd  to  expect  a  judge  to  decide  a  case  properly 
when  he  heard  nothing  but  the  plaintiff's  statement  as  to  expect  removals 
to  be  properly  made  under  such  a  system.  Your  committee  is  of  the  opinion 
that  there  is  no  evil  in  the  spoils  system  as  inherently  wicked  as  this,  whereby 
both  the  livelihood  and  reputation  of  innocent  men  are  liable  to  be  over- 
thrown by  secret  and  false  accusations. 

In  connection  with  these  removals  upon  secret  charges,  it  may  be  well  to 
recall  the  expressions  made  by  Mr.  Harrison  in  the  Senate  upon  this  subject 
in  his  speech  of  March  26,  1886,  as  reported  in  the  Congressional  Record, 
vol.  7,  No.  3,  page  2790  et  seq.  In  reference  to  Executive  nominations  then 
pending  in  the  Senate  he  said: 

"  In  many  of  these  cases,  it  leaked  out  in  the  community  where  the 
officer  resided  that  charges  had  been  filed  against  him.  Some  base  fellows 
had  been  used  for  that  unholy  office;  and,  being  advised  that  charges  had 
been  sent,  the  appeal  was  made  to  heads  of  the  different  departments,  and, 
I  believe,  in  many  cases  to  the  President  himself,  to  be  advised  of  the 
character  of  the  charges  made.  .  .  .     Here  was  an  accusation,  a  hearing,  a 


POLITICAL  CHANGES  IN  POST  OFFICES       63 

sentence,  and  an  execution  without  the  accused  being  advised  of  the  charac- 
ter of  the  charges  against  him.  .  .  . 

"  What  is  it  these  people  ask?  An  honorable  discharge  after  honorable 
service.    That  is  all.  .  .  . 

"  I  do  lift  up  a  hearty  prayer  that  we  may  never  have  a  President  who  will 
not  pursue  and  compel  his  Cabinet  officers  to  pursue  a  civil  service  policy 
pure  and  simple  upon  a  just  basis,  allowing  men  accused  to  be  heard,  and 
deciding  against  them  only  upon  competent  proof  and  fairly — either  have 
that  kind  of  a  civil  service  or,  for  God's  sake,  let  us  have  that  other  frank 
and  bold,  if  brutal,  method  of  turning  men  and  women  out  simply  for 
political  opinion.    Let  us  have  one  or  the  other. " 

It  seems  incredible  that  the  administration  of  the  man  who  uttered  these 
words  should  perpetuate  this  system  of  removals  upon  secret  charges. 
Yet  such  is  the  fact! 

Your  committee  concurs  most  heartily  with  the  expressions  quoted 
above.  They  furnish  the  best  standard  of  criticism  possible  of  the  system 
of  removals  which  is  still  practised  in  the  Post  Office  Department.  It  can 
never  be  unjust  to  the  President  to  judge  him  by  his  own  standard  of  duty, 
by  his  own  conceptions  of  justice  and  fair  play.  The  fittest  condemnation 
of  his  own  acts  is  found  in  his  own  words.  Nor  will  it  do  to  shift  the  re- 
sponsibility from  the  Chief  Executive  to  the  heads  of  these  departments. 
Mr.  Harrison  has  told  us  why  it  cannot  be  so  evaded.  "  I  do  lift  up  a  hearty 
prayer  that  we  may  never  have  a  President  who  will  not  either  pursue  and 
compel  his  Cabinet  officers  to  pursue  a  civil  service  policy  pure  and  simple 
or"  etc.  It  is  not  the  Postmaster-General  and  his  First  Assistant  who,  in 
the  last  analysis  are  responsible.  It  is  the  President,  who  appointed  Wana- 
.  maker  and  Clarkson,  and  who  permitted  these  things  to  bte. 

POLITICAL  CHANGES  IN  POST  OFFICES 

The  review  of  the  changes  of  Presidential  post  oflSces  was 
continued  in  the  next  report.  In  this  our  investigation  showed 
that  out  of  437  changes,  427  removals  were  of  Democrats  and 
out  of  513  appointments  510  were  Republicans.  This  uni- 
formity indicated  that  political  motives  rather  than  the  good 
of  the  service  dictated  the  changes.  In  many  cases  very  full 
inquiries  were  made  as  to  the  political  faith  of  the  appointees 
before  their  commissions  were  issued,  post  office  inspectors 
being  often  employed  for  this  service  at  government  expense. 
In  most  of  the  cases  the  new  appointees  had  been  active  in 
party  work  as  committeemen,  delegates,  county  leaders,  etc. 
Some  of  the  new  appointees  related  their  services  to  the 
Republican  party  in  great  detail  and  with  apparent  pride,  as 


64       THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

well  as  the  political  influence  behind  them.  Sometimes  their 
petitions  would  be  signed  by  all  the  members  of  the  Legisla- 
ture. Editors  of  party  newspapers  were  chosen  in  consider- 
able numbers  and  the  appointments  were  almost  uniformly 
dictated  by  Republican  Congressmen,  the  Post  Office  Depart- 
ment stating  that  Congressional  recommendations  "were  in 
accord  with  the  long  standing  practice  of  the  Department  and 
deemed  to  be  the  best  ground  of  action."  The  relatives  of 
Congressmen  were  often  appointed  to  places  in  these  post 
offices  and  in  many  cases  it  was  stated  that  the  appointee  was 
active  in  Congressional  nominations  in  the  interest  of  the 
Congressman  by  whom  he  was  recommended. 

"Offensive  partisanship"  was  employed  as  an  agency  of  re- 
moval in  the  same  way  as  under  President  Cleveland.  The 
statements  of  Mr.  Clarkson  that  the  President  had  made  no 
removals  except  for  cause,  inefficiency,  delinquency,  or  viola- 
tion of  law  and  had  refused  to  make  any  changes  for  partisan 
reasons  was  thus  shown  to  be  untrue.  Our  committee  quoted 
a  letter  of  Mr.  Wanamaker  to  Congressman  Rockwell  of 
Massachusetts  in  which  he  said,  "The  Postmaster-General 
declines  to  recommend  to  the  President  the  appointment  of  a 
Democrat  unless  it  is  clear  that  there  is  no  Republican  to  fill 
the  place."  It  did  not  seem  hard  to  determine  the  motive  for 
removals  and  appointments  under  such  an  administration  of 
this  department. 

THE  CENSUS  INVESTIGATION 

Our  final  report  contained  the  results  of  our  investigation 
into  the  Census  Bureau. 

In  the  summer  of  1889  President  Harrison  had  refused  to 
include  any  part  of  the  Census  force  in  the  classified  competi- 
tive system.  This  was  a  keen  disappointment  to  many  who 
had  supported  him.  I  was  in  Europe  when  the  announcement 
was  made  and,  on  September  ist,  I  addressed  him  from 
Switzerland  the  following  letter: 

The  papers  just  received  annotince  your  decision  not  to  include  the 
clerks  of  the  Census  Office  in  the  civil  service  rules.    I  find  it  almost  im- 


THE  CENSUS  INVESTIGATION  65 

possible  to  believe  that  this  determination  has  been  finally  made  by  the 
Administration  of  a  party  which  promised  that  the  reform  system  should  be 
extended  to  all  grades  of  the  service  to  which  it  was  applicable.  To  what 
grades  could  that  refer  if  not  to  such  as  these?  If  the  successful  experiments 
already  made  elsewhere  with  exactly  this  branch  of  the  service  do  not  show 
the  applicability  of  the  system,  what  could  demonstrate  it?  If  this  is  really 
your  conclusion,  let  me,  with  all  respect,  most  earnestly  remonstrate.  Can 
any  party  long  retain  popular  confidence  if  the  promises  of  its  own  platform 
become  discredited  ? 

And  now,  something  over  a  year  later  when  the  Census 
had  been  taken,  our  committee  observed : 

If  an  administration  has  a  free  choice  between  a  non-political  and  a 
political  agency  for  taking  the  enumeration,  and  chooses  the  latter,  com- 
posed of  officials  of  its  own  political  faith,  the  presumption  is  against  the 
fairness  of  a  census  so  taken.  The  results  of  such  a  census  will  be  apt  to 
reflect  something  of  the  bias  of  those  who  take  it.  And,  even  if  it  were  fair, 
many  would  not  believe  it  to  be  fair.  Suspicion  is  cast  on  such  a  census  in 
advance  of  enumeration;  and  if,  at  the  close  of  the  work,  many  inaccuracies 
are  shown,  resulting  in  the  advantage  of  the  party  by  whom  it  is  taken, 
the  work  is  sure  to  be  discredited. 

Our  report  showed  that  the  President  had  been  asked  by  the 
Civil  Service  Commission  to  adopt  competitive  examinations 
but  had  declined  to  do  so,  leaving  with  Mr.  Porter,  the  Super- 
intendent of  the  Census  (a  man  who  had  expressed  his  opposi- 
tion to  Civil  Service  Reform)  the  power  to  make  the  selections 
for  that  service.  The  Superintendent  recommended  the 
supervisors  and  these  designated  the  enumerators.  But  as 
the  supervisors  were  appointed  by  political  methods,  naturally 
the  appointment  of  enumerators  became  a  matter  of  political 
patronage.  Republican  members  of  Congress  nominated 
great  numbers.  Sometimes  Democratic  members  procured 
the  appointment  of  a  few,  but  the  great  mass  were  Republicans. 
In  many  places  the  enumerators  were  instructed  by  the  super- 
visors and  others  to  do  poHtical  work.' 

^  Thus  Supervisor  Douglas  in  New  York  wrote  to  his  enumerators,  "As  it 
is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  a  Republican  member  of  Congress  be 
elected  in  this  district  I  shall  feel  personally  obliged  if,  on  the  day  of  the 
election,  you  will  work  specially  for  Benj.  H.  Williams,  the  Republican 
candid0,te." 


66       THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

The  worst  effects  of  the  patronage  system  of  census  appoint- 
ments were  apparent  in  the  city  of  New  York  where  C.  H. 
Murray,  a  Republican  poUtician,  was  made  supervisor.  The 
following  circular  letter  from  him  showed  the  manner  in  which 
the  enimierators  were  selected. 

Dear  Sir:  You  will  please  forward  to  this  office  a  list  of  the  applicants 
that  the  Republican  organization  of  your  district  desires  to  have  named  as 
census  enumerators.   This  list  must  be  sent  here  on  or  before  April  ist. 

Of  this  method  of  appointment  President  Walker,  of  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  who  had  been  Super- 
intendent of  the  Ninth  and  Tenth  Censuses,  said,  "If  the 
selection  of  the  enumerators  was  made  upon  any  such  basis 
as  is  implied  by  that,  the  census  could  not  have  been  otherwise 
than  bad. "  Such  a  method  was  a  direct  violation  of  Section  5 
of  the  act  providing  for  the  census,  which  prescribed  that 

Section  8  of  the  Act,  required  that  each  enumerator  should  subscribe 
an  oath  that  he  would  not  disclose  any  information  contained  in  the 
schedules,  lists,  or  statements  to  any  person  except  his  superior  officer,  yet 
in  spite  of  this,  the  enumerators  in  Monroe  County,  Indiana,  who  were 
selected  upon  the  recommendation  of  the  Republican  County  Committee 
were  engaged  in  making  poll  lists  for  the  Republican  party.  This  also 
occurred  in  other  counties  and  States. 

Our  committee  observed  that  if  enumerators  were  allowed  to  remain 
ignorant  of  the  law  imposing  secrecy,  the  Superintendent  of  the  Census 
deserved  the  greatest  censure  and  if  they  were  permitted  to  violate  it  wilfully 
he  was  an  accessory  to  a  crime. 

A  letter  from  Congressman  Raines  to  one  of  the  enumerators  in  his 
district  was  as  follows: 

"My  dear  Sir:  As  it  is  quite  likely  that  you  will  in  a  few  days  be  ap- 
pointed enumerator  for  your  district,  I  write  you  this  in  the  strictest 
confidence.  I  would  like  very  much  that  you  should  take  the  trouble, 
before  you  make  your  report  to  the  Supervisor  of  the  Census,  and  after 
you  have  taken  all  the  names  in  your  district,  to  copy  in  a  small  book  the 
name  and  post  office  address  of  every  voter  on  the  list.  After  you  have  done 
so,  I  wish  you  to  send  the  book  to  me  at  Canandaigua.  I  ask  you  to  do  this 
as  a  personal  favor  and  to  make  no  mention  of  the  matter  to  anyone. 
What  I  want  is  a  full  list  of  all  the  voters  in  your  enumeration  district. 
Will  you  please  treat  this  matter  as  strictly  confidential?" 

Mr.  Raines  told  me  he  had  sent  this  letter  in  ignorance  of  the  law  which 
required  enumerators  to  keep  secret  the  results  of  the  enumeration. 


THE  CENSUS  INVESTIGATION  67 

enumerators  "should  be  selected  solely  with  reference  to  fitness 
and  without  reference  to  party  affiliations." 

It  is  evident  enough  that  among  men  thus  appointed  there 
must  have  been  a  considerable  number  who  were  utterly  unfit 
for  the  work,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  among  these  men 
Police  Inspector  Byrnes  should  recognize  well-known  crimi- 
nals.    Mr.  Byrnes  said: 

I  know  that  some  of  the  enumerators  in  this  city  were  thieves.  This  very 
morning  one  of  these  enumerators  came  here  to  call  upon  me.  He  had  been 
three  times  an  inmate  of  the  vState  Prison.  He  was  appointed  upon  the 
recommendation  of  a  Republican  judge.  This  thief's  name  is  known  to  all 
the  city  detectives,  and  his  picture  occupies  a  prominent  place  in  the  Rogues' 
Gallery.  He  did  not  take  the  oath  in  his  own  name,  and  his  dealings  with  the 
Census  Bureau  were  under  an  alias. 

The  danger  of  employing  such  men  as  enumerators  is  very 
evident.  Private  houses  were  opened  to  them  with  the  under- 
standing that  the  government  was  satisfied  with  their  trust- 
worthiness. 

Many  facts  indicated  that  the  New  York  census  was  in- 
accurate and  incomplete  and  the  police  authorities  by  order 
of  the  Mayor  had  a  recount  made  and  the  result  showed  a 
population  nearly  200,000  more  than  that  shown  by  the 
federal  authorities.  The  Mayor  asked  the  Census  Bureau 
for  a  recount  but  this  was  refused.  The  New  York  authorities 
then  determined  to  take  one  of  the  wards  as  a  sample  and 
secured  a  copy  of  the  federal  list  for  the  second  ward,  the 
smallest  in  the  city.  It  contained  826  names  while  the  police 
enimieration  showed  1340  names  or  41  %  more.  The  New  York 
authorities  now  procured  from  the  persons  omitted  in  the 
federal  enumeration  affidavits  showing  their  residence  in  that 
ward.  Three  hundred  and  twenty-eight  such  affidavits  were 
furnished. 

I  personally  inspected  the  lists  in  the  police  and  federal 
emunerations  respectively  and  ascertained  by  visiting  the  ward 
that  a  large  nimiber  of  residents  therein  were  omitted  in  the 
federal  census.  I  found  that  in  two  squares  alone,  twelve 
houses,  in  which  thirty-eight  persons  resided  had  been  wholly 


68        THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

omitted.  John  Kiernan,  the  enumerator,  who  secured  his 
appointment  through  the  "regular  channel"  as  an  enrolled 
Republican  of  the  Third  Assembly  District,  told  me  that  cer- 
tain schedules  had  been  lying  somewhere  around  the  house 
but  could  not  be  found.  In  this  he  was  corroborated  by  other 
members  of  the  family.  In  a  number  of  cases  even  the  names 
reported  by  Mr.  Kiernan  did  not  appear  in  the  federal  Hsts. 

As  the  emmierators  in  New  York  were  Republicans  and  as 
the  city  had  a  large  Democratic  majority  and  the  result  was 
that  the  population  was  enumerated  as  less  than  it  actually 
was,  it  was  naturally  inferred  that  the  error  was  intentional 
and  made  for  the  purpose  of  reducing  the  representation  of 
New  York  in  Congress. 

Our  committee  concluded  its  report  by  insisting  that  the 
refusal  to  apply  competitive  examinations  in  appointments  to 
the  clerical  force  of  the  Census  Bureau  was  a  violation  by  the 
President  of  a  promise  contained  in  the  Republican  platform 
in  1888  and  indorsed  in  his  letter  of  acceptance;  that  by  the 
appointment  of  emmierators  on  political  grounds  in  open 
violation  of  the  law  great  numbers  of  incompetent  men  had 
been  engaged ;  that  in  many  cases  the  work  had  been  carelessly 
and  badly  done  and  was  open  to  the  suspicion  of  partisan 
considerations  and  that  there  was  a  widespread  distrust  of  the 
accuracy  of  the  result  which  greatly  impaired  its  value,  all 
caused  by  the  fact  that  the  Census  Bureau  had  been  conducted 
upon  the  spoils  system.* 

^  During  our  investigation,  the  criticisms  of  Mr.  Porter's  methods  of 
taking  the  census  were  so  widespread  that  he  undertook  a  defense  of  his 
course  in  an  article  in  Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated  Newspaper  in  November, 
1890.  On  the  1 2th  of  that  month  I  addressed  to  him  an  open  letter  which 
was  widely  published.    It  contained  the  following: 

"Realizing  at  last  that  the  census  taken  by  you  through  officials  chosen 
by  partisan  machinery  has  become  so  generally  discredited  that  a  personal 
defense  over  your  own  signature  was  necessary,  you  seek  to  show  in  an 
article  in  Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated  Newspaper  that  your  work  has  been 
honestly  and  fairly  done.  You  would  be  more  successful  in  this  effort  if  the 
methods  pursued  at  the  outset  in  the  taking  of  the  census  had  been  less 
tinctured  by  those  political  elements  which  were  calculated  to  cast  sus- 
picion upon  its  results.  As  you  have  addressed  the  people  and  thus  invited 


THE  CENSUS  INVESTIGATION  69 

public  discussion  of  your  management,  permit  me  to  make  a  few  inquiries 
through  the  same  channel  of  the  press. 

"You  say  that  a  partisan  census  is  an  impossibility.  If  this  be  so  why  did 
you  recommend  to  the  President  that  this  census  be  taken  by  enumerators 
appointed  upon  the  recommendation  of  Republican  Congressmen  and  other 
influential  party  men?  Why  did  you  refusa  to  adopt  the  system  by  which 
appointments  in  your  bureau  should  be  non-partisan,  made  upon  competi- 
tion among  those  seeking  appointment  without  regard  to  their  political 
affiliations?  The  Civil  Service  Commission  desired  that  the  merit  system 
should  be  applied  to  your  office  but  you  resisted  this  just  and  reasonable 
demand  and  insisted  upon  retaining  the  patronage  of  this  vast  bureau 
which  you  parcelled  out  among  politicians. 

"Did  it  not  occur  to  you  that  by  this  act  you  were  to  discredit  the  results 
of  your  work?  Even  if  the  enumeration  were  fair  and  accurate,  was  it  not 
certain  to  be  clouded  by  suspicion  if  made  by  one  party  alone?  Would  you 
believe  in  the  accuracy  of  a  Democratic  enumeration  made  in  the  same  way? 
Do  you,  in  fact,  believe  in  the  accuracy  of  the  police  enumeration  made  in 
New  York  taken  under  Democratic  direction?  If  not,  how  can  you  expect 
others  to  believe  in  the  accuracy  of  your  own?  You  say  that  even  to  hint 
at  such  an  infamy  as  a  partisan  census  is  an  outrageous  assault  upon  the 
integrity  of  every  one  who  has  taken  part  in  the  work  and  yet  you  assert 
that  the  police  were  appointed  in  New  York  for  the  sole  purpose  of  finding 
more  population  than  the  federal  enumerators  foimd  and  that  the  general 
rule  adopted  was,  'When  you  are  in  doubt,  add  one.'  Is  not  this  an 
equally  outrageous  assault  upon  the  int^rity  of  those  who  took  part  in 
that  enumeration? 

"You  say  that  your  enumerators  were  selected  with  the  greatest  care 
from  the  best  material  available.  How  do  you  know  this  when  you  refused 
to  subject  your  appointees  to  an  examination  in  which  their  ability  could 
be  tested  in  comparison  with  that  of  others? 

"You  say  that  no  one  has  been  able  to  ascertain  whether  the  discrepancies 
in  the  New  York  count  are  due  to  careless  omissions  in  June  or  intentional 
additions  in  October.  Is  it  not  your  duty  to  ascertain  whether  a  discrepancy 
of  two  hundred  thousand  is  due  to  the  careless  omissions  of  your  agents? 
Do  you  expect  the  people  to  believe  in  the  accuracy  of  your  census  when 
you  admit  that  it  is  possible  that  two  htmdred  thousand  names  have  been 
left  out  by  the  careless  omissions  of  your  own  enumerators?  And  why  do 
you  speak  of  these  additions  as  'intentional'  and  of  the  omissions  of  your 
own  bureau  as  simply  'careless.' 

"But  I  desire  to  address  you  not  simply  as  a  citizen,  but  as  a  Republicant 
as  one  who,  like  yourself,  did  all  I  could  for  the  success  of  the  party  in 
1888.  Our  party  promised  in  its  last  platform  that  the  reform  of  the  civil 
service  auspiciously  begun  under  a  Republican  administration  should  be 
completed  by  the  further  extension  of  the  reform  system  already  estab- 
lished by  law  to  all  grades  of  the  service  to  which  it  was  applicable.    So  far 


70       THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

as  the  Census  Bureau  was  concerned  there  could  be  no  doubt  as  to  its 
applicability.  The  places  in  that  bureau  are  subordinate,  non-political, 
administrative  offices. 

"The  pledge  made  in  the  Republican  platform  could  have  no  possible 
reference  to  anything  if  it  did  not  refer  to  such  a  bureau  as  yours  where 
experience  had  already  shown  the  applicability  of  the  reform  system.  Yet 
you  recommend  to  the  President  a  violation  of  that  pledge  and  the  reten- 
tion of  political  patronage  in  the  appointment  of  the  fifty  thousand  officers 
of  whom  you  speak.  Do  you  believe  that  any  party  can  long  retain  power 
when  the  promises  in  its  own  platform  become  discredited?  " 

To  this  letter  Mr.  Porter  replied  on  November  13th,  that  my  first 
assumption  that  he  sought  an  opportunity  to  defend  the  census  in  Frank 
Leslie's  Illustrated  Newspaper  was  not  true,  because  the  article  was  written 
at  the  very  earnest  solicitation  of  the  editor  of  that  paper.  That  my  second 
assumption  was  equally  incorrect  that  he  recommended  to  the  President 
that  the  Census  be  taken  by  enumerators  appointed  upon  the  recommenda- 
tions of  Republican  Congressmen  and  influential  party  men  since  the  law 
made  it  the  duty  of  the  supervisors  to  select  their  own  enumerators.  It 
would  have  been  impossible  to  submit  an  army  of  fifty  thousand  enumera- 
tors to  an  examination  since  in  many  parts  of  the  country  it  was  difficult 
to  secure  persons  for  the  work  at  less  than  I3.00  a  day  for  employment 
lasting  from  fifteen  to  thirty  days.  Mr.  Porter  said  he  would  believe  in  the 
accuracy  of  an  enumeration  conducted  by  a  Democratic  administration 
in  the  same  manner  and  spirit  as  the  Eleventh  Census  but  that  a  list  of 
names  secured  by  the  policemen  in  New  York  was  quite  different  from  a 
census  of  the  United  States.  The  intent  of  that  enumeration  was  to  find 
more  people  than  were  found  by  the  federal  enumerators  who  were  bound 
by  their  oath  of  office  and  instructions  to  the  strictest  rules  and  regulations. 
He  knew  that  his  enumerators  had  been  selected  with  the  greatest  care 
because  in  New  York  City  they  had  been  subjected  to  a  quasi  civil  service 
examination  by  the  supervisor  and  those  who  were  not  fairly  accurate 
and  rapid  writers  were  refused  employment  while  in  other  cities  the  super- 
visors were  instructed  to  test  personally  each  applicant  and  ascertain  if  he 
had  the  necessary  ability. 

Mr.  Porter  denied  the  charge  that  there  was  any  politics  in  his  appoint- 
ments. Every  important  place,  every  expert,  every  man  or  woman  in 
charge  of  work  had  been  appointed  solely  on  account  of  ability.  In  fact 
the  merit  system  had  been  successfully  applied  and  as  a  result  he  had  one 
of  the  most  efficient  clerical  forces  in  the  public  service.  No  pledge  made 
by  the  Republican  party  had  been  violated. 

On  the  following  day  I  rejoined  in  the  letter  here  given: 

**  Dear  Sir:  In  your  open  letter  just  received,  you  say  my  first  assump- 
tion was  that  you  sought  an  opportunity  to  defend  the  census  in  Frank 
Leslie's  Newspaper  and  that  this  is  not  true  because  the  article  was  written 
at  the  solicitation  of  the  editor. 


THE  CENSUS  INVESTIGATION  71 

"  I  certainly  was  slow  to  assume  that  an  article  defending  your  own 
management  was  solicited  and  written  in  the  ordinary  course  of  the  business 
of  such  a  journal.  That  your  conduct  of  the  office  should  create  a  demand 
which  made  such  an  article  a  valuable  commodity  and  that  you  should 
then  satisfy  it  in  this  manner  I  certainly  did  not  wish  to  believe. 

"  You  say  that  my  second  assumption — that  you  recommended  that  the 
enumerators  should  be  appointed  on  the  recommendation  of  party  men — 
is  equally  incorrect  and  that  these  enumerators  were  appointed  by  the 
supervisors. 

"  But  were  not  these  supervisors  themselves  political  appointments? 
Was  partisanship  absent  in  their  selection? 

* '  I  have  known  several  and  they  are  all  Republican  politicians.  Did  you 
not  state  on  September  9th,  biefore  a  Congressional  Committee,  that 
appointees  were  generally  recommended  by  Republicans?  .  .  . 

"  Was  this  your  idea  of  the  meaning  of  the  Republican  platform? 
Republican  supervisors  are  appointed  and  they  appoint  Republican 
subordinates  for  political  reasons  and  then  you  claim  that  all  this  is 
non-partisan.  .  . 

*  *  Is  there  not  a  presumption  that  when  you  thus  made  selection  between 
the  old  plan  and  the  new  you  did  it  for  a  purpose?  And  that  this  purpose 
was  to  aid  in  some  way  the  Republican  party,  either  in  the  manipulation 
of  patronage  or  in  the  control  of  the  results  of  the  census? 

"  You  say  that  you  know  the  enumerators  were  selected  with  the  greatest 
care  because  in  New  York  they  were  subjected  to  a  quasi  civil  service 
examination  by  the  supervisors  and  those  who  were  not  fairly  accurate  and 
rapid  writers  were  refused  employment. 

**  I  do  not  quite  understand  that  mongrel  variety  of  reform  embodied  in  a 
quasi  civil  service  examination  by  partisan  supervisors.  In  such  examina- 
tion did  any  one  who  could  show  his  proficiency  and  qualifications  whether 
Republicanor  Democrat,  have  an  equal  chance  with  others?.  .  . 

"  But  I  am  still  more  puzzled  in  comparing  two  other  statements  in  your 
letter.  On  the  first  page  you  say  "an  attempt  to  subject  this  immense 
army  to  a  civil  service  examination  would  have  been  a  farce,  if  it  would  not 
have  been  impossible, "  while  in  a  subsequent  part  of  your  letter  you  speak 
of  this  quasi  civil  service  examination  by  the  supervisors  and  say  that  the 
supervisors  were  personally  instructed  to  test  each  applicant.  If  the  other 
system  was  absurd  and  impossible  why  was  not  this  absurd  and  impossible? 
If  you  can  thus  examine  a  man  who  has  come  with  a  recommendation  why 
could  you  not  competitively  examine,  without  regard  to  politics,  all  those 
who  desired  to  be  appointed?  .  .  . 

"  The  words  of  the  Republican  platform  demanded  the  extension  of  the 
system  already  established  by  law.  What  was  that  system?  It  was  a  system 
of  appointments  without  regard  to  political  consideration  upon  open, 
competitive  examination,  made  under  the  direction  of  commissioners  of 
both  parties  appointed  by  the  President.  ... 


72        THE  CIVIL  SERVICE  UNDER  HARRISON 

**  Was  the  classified  system  extended  to  any  part  of  your  bureau? 

**  Youthinkit  would  not  be  practicable  to  extend  it  to  census  enumerators, 
but  you  have  given  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  extended  to  the  bureau 
in  Washington,  to  clerks  and  other  employees  in  your  office.  Did  not  the 
Civil  Service  Commissioners  desire  that  it  should  be  so  extended?  Did  you 
not  oppose  this?  Has  it  been  so  extended?  You  did,  indeed,  institute  a 
sort  of  pass  examination  so  that  persons  entirely  ignorant  might  be  weeded 
out,  but  Democrats  could  not  compete  on  equal  terms  and  there  was  no 
competition  even  among  Republicans,  except  among  those  whose  applica- 
tion had  come  with  the  proper  indorsement,  for  you  say  in  your  testimony 
before  the  committee,  'Usually  the  examination  was  confined  to  those 
whom  it  was  intended  to  appoint. ' 

"  It  is  not  necessary  to  remind  you  that  this  is  not  Civil  Service  Reform 
and  that  it  is  not  what  the  Republican  party  promised. 

"  Yours  respectfully, 

"  William  D.  Foulke." 

To  this  letter  Mr.  Porter  made  no  further  reply.  In  respect  of  this 
correspondence  Mr.  George  William  Curtis  wrote  me  the  following : 

"  West  New  Brighton,  Staten  Island, 
"My  DEAR  Mr.  Foulke :  Your  pulverization  of  poor  Mr.  Porter  is 
complete  and  your  service  to  the  good  cause,  as  so  often  heretofore,  is  very 
great.  It  is  a  cause  which  asks  for  itself,  only  what  it  asks  for  the  Civil 
Service,  a  fair  field  and  no  favor.  With  every  friend  of  reform  I  con- 
gratulate you  heartily  and  I  am  always, 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"  George  William  Curtis." 


CHAPTER  V 

SUBSEQUENT  HISTORY  OF  THE  CENSUS 

Now  that  we  are  dealing  with  the  Census  Bureau  it  may  be 
well  to  consider  the  subsequent  history  of  this  branch  of  the 
public  service  in  its  relation  to  the  spoils  system. 

Some  years  after  the  foregoing  report  was  published  I  had 
occasion  as  a  member  of  another  investigating  committee  of 
the  League  to  examine  more  specifically  the  manner  in  which 
Mr.  Porter's  appointments  had  been  made.  This  was  after 
Mr.  Porter  had  retired  from  office  when  evidence  was  access- 
ible which  could  not  be  secured  during  his  incumbency. 

I  found  that,  like  the  Secretary  of  Patronage  in  England  in 
former  days,  he  kept  regular  books  of  account  with  Congress- 
men informing  each,  whether  Senator  or  Representative  to 
whom  patronage  was  given  (and  these  were  mostly  Republic- 
ans) ,  how  many  positions  were  at  his  disposal.  I  examined  two 
of  these  books  of  account.  In  one  of  them  the  appointments  were 
classified  according  to  States  and  in  the  other  they  were  charged 
to  the  particular  Congressman  on  whose  recommendation  they 
were  made.  The  latter  book  was  a  ledger  of  over  four  hundred 
pages.  At  the  head  of  each  page  appeared  the  name  of  the 
Congressman  charged  with  the  appointments.  In  the  left- 
hand  column  were  the  numbers  of  the  files  containing  the 
recommendations  and  credentials,  then  followed  the  names  of 
the  appointees  and  the  grades  and  salaries.  By  means  of  this 
book  the  relative  rights  of  members  of  Congress  could  be 
adjusted  and  it  could  be  seen  at  a  glance  whether  any  particu- 
lar member  had  overdrawn  his  account.  A  peculiar  feature 
of  this  book  was  that  after  a  Congressman  retired  the  clerks 

73 


74       SUBSEQUENT  HISTORY  OF  THE  CENSUS 

appointed  by  him  were  transferred  to  another  account  where 
the  appointees  of  ex-Congressmen  were  all  thrown  together, 
perhaps  as  the  subjects  of  early  decapitation. 

I  was  informed  there  were  other  books  of  the  same  character 
as  this  ledger  in  the  Census  Office  covering  other  periods  of 
time.  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  similarity  of  this 
catalogue  to  a  live  stock  register.  The  clerks  appointed 
seemed  to  be  regarded  as  the  property  of  particular  Congress- 
men. There  was  however  no  reference  to  their  records  and 
personal  qualifications.  Such  a  record  might  have  been  un- 
pleasant reading,  for  one  of  the  employees  in  the  Bureau  told 
me  that  there  were  about  five  thousand  people  in  Washington 
who  had  been  at  one  time  or  another  in  various  departments 
and  been  turned  out  for  one  reason  or  another;  that  these 
persons  had  made  it  uncomfortable  for  Congressmen  until 
they  got  new  places  and  that  great  numbers  of  them  were 
foisted  upon  the  Census  Biireau.  Some  of  them  had  had 
relations  with  the  Congressmen  which  made  refusals  difficult. 
While  under  the  competitive  system  it  was  hardly  possible 
that  applicants  could  get  places  because  of  corruption  or 
immorality,  yet  when  appointed  through  Congressional  favor 
this  was  often  the  very  reason  for  the  appointment  and  after 
getting  their  places  in  this  way  removal  from  the  bureau  even 
for  just  cause  became  difficult  and  often  impossible.  Persons 
dismissed  for  inefficiency  or  misconduct  were  actually  re- 
instated even  against  the  will  of  the  chief  of  the  bureau  himself 
at  the  demand  of  some  political  friend  too  powerful  to  be 
offended. 

The  purpose  of  this  distribution  of  patronage  was  not  only 
to  strengthen  the  party,  but  perhaps  more  important,  to  secure 
ample  appropriations,  and  some  ^10,620,000  was  thus  secured. 
Indeed  Mr.  Porter  himself  once  told  me  that  his  plan  had 
greatly  smoothed  the  way  for  the  passage  of  such  appropria- 
tions and  other  friendly  legislation. 

Extravagance  was  a  necessary  result  and  certainly  any 
political  advantage  sought  to  be  secured  in  this  way  was 
entirely  illusory  since  the  most  severe  defeat  ever  sustained 
by  the  party  then  in  power  occurred  at  the  close  of  the  very 


SUBSEQUENT  HISTORY  OF  THE  CENSUS      75 

year  in  which  these  appointments  were  parcelled  out,  prin- 
cipally among  the  representatives  of  that  party. 

When  Mr.  Robert  P.  Porter  retired  as  superintendent, 
Carroll  D.  Wright  took  charge  of  the  permanent  Census 
Bureau  and  spoke  strongly  of  the  inefficiency  and  extravagance 
which  the  patronage  system  had  entailed.  He  estimated 
(see  letter  to  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  Congressional  Record,  Dec. 
16,  1897,  page  174)  that  two  million  dollars  and  more  than  a 
year's  time  would  have  been  saved  if  the  Census  Bureau  had 
been  placed  under  the  civil  service  law,^  and  he  added: 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  one  third  of  the  amount  expended  under  my 
own  administration  was  absolutely  wasted  and  wasted  principally  because 
of  the  fact  that  the  ofSce  was  not  under  civil  service  rules.  .  .  .  In  October, 
1893,  when  I  took  charge  of  the  Census  Office,  there  was  an  office  force  of 
1092,  there  had  been  a  constant  reduction  for  many  months  and  this  was 
kept  up  without  cessation  to  the  close  of  the  Census.  Nevertheless  while 
these  general  reductions  were  being  made  and  in  the  absence  of  any 
necessity  for  an  increase  of  the  force  389  new  appointments  were  made. 

That  is  new  appointments  were  made  where  they  were  not 
needed,  the  new  men  replacing  experienced  clerks  and  filling 
the  office  with  beginners  at  the  end  of  the  work  because  these 
appointments  were  political. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  at  a  later  period  Mr.  Porter 
himself  became  a  convert  to  the  necessity  of  placing  the  Census 
Bureau  in  the  classified  service.  He  told  me  himself  that  if 
he  had  it  to  do  again  he  would  select  his  clerks  by  civil  service 
examinations.  In  an  article  in  the  North  American  Review  in 
December,  1897,  he  enumerated  among  the  faults  of  the  exist- 
ing system  the  following:  "Placing  upon  the  shoulders  of  the 
superintendent,  whose  mind  should  be  fully  occupied  with  his 
experts  in  planning  the  work,  the  responsibility  of  an  office 
force  of  several  thousand  clerks."  And  he  asked,  "Why 
transform  the  office  at  its  busiest  season  into  an  examination 
department  for  clerks  and  the  director  of  a  vast  scientific 
investigation  into  a  dispenser  of  political  patronage?  It  is 
simply  unjust  to  such  an  official.     Having  passed  through  the 

*  Mr.  Porter  disputed  the  statement  of  Mr.  Wright  that  it  was  so  much  as 
two  million  from  this  cause  alone. 


76       SUBSEQUENT  HISTORY  OF  THE  CENSUS 

ordeal  once,  I  am  satisfied  that  the  other  way  is  more  practical 
and  in  the  end  will  be  better  for  all  concerned. " 


THE  MERRIAM  CENSUS 

When  therefore  on  March  i6,  1897,  Senator  Chandler 
introduced  a  bill  for  the  taking  of  the  Twelfth  and  every 
subsequent  census,  Section  3  provided  that  employees  should 
be  appointed  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  Civil  Service 
Act.  The  bill  was  referred  to  the  Census  Committee  which  in 
spite  of  the  disastrous  experience  of  the  preceding  census, 
struck  out  Section  3  and  substituted  a  provision  renewing  the 
system  of  Congressional  patronage  with  its  attendant  evils. 

I  was  again  appointed  by  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform 
League  as  chairman  of  an  investigating  committee  to  report 
upon  the  effect  of  this  new  law.  On  January  17,  1898,  before 
the  bill  passed  we  made  and  published  a  report  showing  the 
disastrous  effects  of  this  plan  on  the  preceding  census,  the 
extravagance  of  the  bureau,  the  demoralization  of  the  force 
employed  and  the  comparative  worthlessness  and  lack  of 
public  confidence  in  a  census  thus  taken.  We  set  forth  in  our 
report  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Wright,  the  changed  views  of  Mr. 
Porter,  the  patronage  books  of  account  and  the  evils  and  un- 
reliability of  the  former  census  as  shown  in  our  previous  inves- 
tigation, and  we  urged  in  the  strongest  language  we  could 
command  the  classification  of  the  Census  Bureau  under  civil 
service  rules. 

But  all  to  no  purpose.  The  bill  as  passed  provided  for  the 
appointment  of  supervisors,  statisticians,  and  other  clerical 
employees  by  the  director  after  such  examinations  only  as  he 
might  prescribe.  The  President  appointed  as  director  ex- 
Governor  W.  R.  Merriam,  of  Minnesota,  a  selection  made  for 
political  reasons,  and  Mr.  Merriam  determined  to  make  the 
appointments  subject  to  the  patronage  of  Congressmen.  He 
made  an  allotment  to  each  State  and  then  a  subdivision 
among  Congressional  districts  and  the  Senators  and  Representa- 
tives were  asked  to  furnish  the  names  of  such  persons  as  they 
desired  to  be  examined  for  places  in  the  Bureau.    No  one  else 


J 


THE  MERRIAM  CENSUS  77 

was  considered  for  appointment.  In  this  allotment  of 
patronage  Democrats  were  not  entirely  overlooked.  They 
were  allowed  a  smaller  number  of  appointments  than  Repub- 
licans and  the  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  did 
not  get  so  many  as  Senators  but  nobody  got  less  than  six  and 
regular  books  of  account  were  kept  as  in  the  preceding  census, 
in  which  the  appointments  were  charged  to  the  Congressmen 
recommending  them. 

Governor  Merriam  however  secured  a  rather  better  set  of 
employees  than  Mr.  Porter  had  done  ten  years  before.  The 
examination  was  severe  and  in  a  limited  way  it  was  competi- 
tive because  each  Congressman  nominated  about  twice  as 
many  as  the  number  of  abpointments  he  was  entitled  to  and 
those  who  passed  best  were  chosen  unless  (as  often  happened) 
the  candidates  could  not  pass  at  all  in  which  case  new  persons 
had  to  be  nominated. 

The  appointments,  however,  still  went  by  favor  through 
personal  and  political  influence  and  were  tainted  with  the 
same  essential  vice  as  those  made  under  Mr.  Porter.  It  was 
inevitable  that  the  appointees  should  use  the  power  given  to 
them  for  the  benefit  of  their  party  and  of  the  particular  Con- 
gressman who  gave  them  the  appointment.  This  led  to  abuses 
of  which  the  following  case  is  an  excellent  illustration. 

THE  MARYLAND   SCANDAL 

The  Hon.  S.  E.  Mudd,  a  Republican  Congressman  from 
Maryland,  secured  the  appointment  of  one  Rollins,  as  super- 
visor for  his  district.  The  constitution  of  Maryland  provides 
that_any  county  of  less  than  18,000  inhabitants  shall  have  two 
members  in  the  House  of  Delegates;  if  it  contains  a  popula- 
tion of  between  18,000  and  28,000,  three  members;  if  between 
28,000  and  40,000,  four  members ;  if  between  40,000  and  55,000, 
five  members  and  the  apportionment  is  to  be  made  on  the  basis 
of  the  federal  census,  if  no  State  census  is  taken. 

It  was  thus  to  the  interest  of  Republicans  and  of  Mr.  Mudd 
personall}^  as  the  leader  of  the  party  in  his  district  to  have  the 
representation  of  the  Republican  counties  as  large  as  possible. 


78       SUBSEQUENT  HISTORY  OF  THE  CENSUS 

y  There  were  three  counties  where  he  hoped  to  gainMelegates; 

St.  Maryls.  Chades^  and  Anne  Arundel.    But  the  population  of 

^  h         the  first  two  as  shown  by  preceding  censuses  was  somewhat 

ifl  *   short  of  18,000  each  and  in  Anne  Arundel  by  the  census  of 

fyy^     1890  it  was  about  6000  short  of  40,000.    But  after  the  census 

/^         was  taken  and  the  population  of  these  three  counties  was 

announced  in  December,  1900,  it  was  found  that  each  was 

,  i     just  a  little  over  the  limit  required  and  that  there  would  be  a 

gain  of  one  Representative  in  each  county.     Suspicion  was 

I       ^Jw^roused,  since  elsewhere  there  was  little  growth  in  population, 

S^/    and  in  February  the  governor  of  Maryland  called  an  extra 

'  /       session  of  the  legislature  to  amend  the  ballot  law  and  provide 

for  a  State  census  on  account  of  the  belief  that  there  were 

frauds  in  the  federal  enumeration. 

Mr.  Merriam,  the  Director  of  the  Census,  determined  to 

investigate  and  to  begin  in  St.  Mary's  County.    Congressman 

C^^Mudd  now  requested  of  the  Census  Bureau  that  the  man  in 

Jcharge  of  the  inquiry  should  be  instructed  to  confer  with  one 

/  Joseph  H.  Ching,  at  Leonardtown  the  county  seat,  and  this  was 

[done.    In  the  schedules  returned  by  the  enumerator,  the  first 

eighteen,  which  contained  1713  names,  were  found  correct  but 

28  names  on  the  last  six  schedules  could  not  be  accounted 

or.     Ching  claimed  they  were  genuine  inhabitants  but  gave 

no  information  where  they  could  be  seen.    A  house  to  house 

canvass  of  the  county  followed  and  the  results  were  developed 

in  a  trial  of  an  indictment  against  Ching,  who  with  one  Abell 

and  other  enumerators  was  charged  with  conspiracy  in  making 

fictitious  returns. 

It  appeared  that  in  the  preceding  July  the  enumerators  had 
completed  their  schedules  and  their  returns  showed  the  popula- 
tion to  be  16,998  or  1002  less  than  the  18,000  limit.  Ching 
went  to  Washington  and  complained  to  Rollins,  that  the 
enumerators  had  omitted  a  considerable  number  of  inhabi- 
tants and  Congressman  Mudd  asked  the  chief  statistician 
whether  the  supervisor  could  not  send  out  additional  schedules 
where  he  believed  that  people  had  been  overlooked.  The 
answer  was  that  it  was  his  duty  to  do  so.  So  the  supplemen- 
tary schedules  were  sent  out  and  foiir  enumerators,    Abell, 


THE  MARYLAND  SCANDAL  79 

Bowles,  Guyther,  and  Graves  returned  them  with  1138  addi- 
tional names,  sufficient  to  raise  the  population  to  over  18,000. 
When  these  men  were  tried,  Guyther  pleaded  guilty  and 
turned  St^ate's  evidence.  He  testified  that  Ching  told  him  he 
ought  to  get  from  150  to  200  additional  names.  Guyther  an- 
swered that  he  did  not  know  where  to  get  them.  Ching  replied 
he  could  go  to  the  summer  hotels  and  enumerate  the  guests, 
Addittgr-U^re  there  no  graveyards  in  the  district?"  Guyther 
made  up  198  additional  names,  partly  from  people  who  had 
moved  away,  partly  from  siimmer  boarders  and  nurse  girls  at 
hotels  and  partly  from  imagination,  filling  up  the  ages  and 
occupations  at  will. 

Ennumerator  Graves  sent  in  100  additional  names  partly 
duplicates  of  the  names  already  submitted. 

/^~0f  528  additional  names  returned  by  Abell  on  his  supple- 

^  mentary  list  73  were  in  Ching's  handwriting,  29  had  been 
dead  from  a  few  months  to  twenty  years  or  more,  127  had 
never  lived  in  the  district;  other  names  were  entirely  fictitious. 
In  one  case  Ching  not  only  enumerated  a  dead  woman  but  also 
the  Washington  undertaker  who  had  come  down  to  bury  her. 
— Bowles  returned  312  additional  names,  55  were  those  of 
dead  people  and  the  balance  were  non-residents  or  fictitious. 

^-Some  of  the  statements  in  his  schedules  were  amusing.    Eccles- 

J  ton  S.   Graves  appeared  as  a  school-teacher,  six  years  old. 

^^  Thomas  J.  Graves,  age  two  years,  was  described  as  a  farm 
/  laborer  employed  during  the  entire  year  who  could  read, 

I  write,  and  speak  English.     Joshua  Niles,  two  years  old,  was 

vsaid  to  be  a  carpenter. 

The  enumeration  in  Charles  County  also  contained  many 
names  which  ought  not  to  have  been  there  and  in  Anne 
Arundel  County  between  three  and  four  thousand  berry 
pickers  who  were  in  the  county  temporarily  for  a  few  weeks 
were  included. 

The  federal  grand  jury  which  brought  in  the  indictment 

'^  said  in  their  report:  "So  long  as  such  appointments  are  treated 
as  part  of  the  spoils  of  politics  the  recurrence  of  such  frauds 
and  scandals  as  have  been  revealed  by  our  investigation  may 
be  expected." 


< 


8o      SUBSEQUENT  HISTORY  OF  THE  CENSUS 

The  foregoing  facts  were  embodied  in  a  report  published 
by  our  Investigating  Committee  on  June  24,  1901.  Ching, 
the  ringleader  in  this  conspiracy,  was  convicted  and  punished. 

ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  TRANSFERS  OF  CENSUS  CLERKS 

In  1 90 1  I  was  appointed  on  the  United  States  Civil  Service 
Commission  and  had  not  been  long  upon  that  body  before  we 
began  to  see  trouble  ahead  in  respect  to  the  employees  of  the 
Census  Bureau. 

The  work  of  taking  the  census  of  1900  was  now  nearly  over 
and  the  time  was  soon  coming  when  a  force  of  several  thousand 
clerks  and  other  employees  would  be  discharged.  Although 
they  knew  perfectly  well  when  they  took  these  places  that  the 
appointments  were  temporary  yet  they  were  none  the  less 
reluctant  to  go  and  we  foresaw  that  each  one  would  naturally 
betake  himself  to  his  "influence, "  that  is,  to  the  Congressman 
who  had  secured  his  place,  to  keep  him  in  office  or  get  him 
another  job.  The  Congressmen  were  already  at  work  insisting 
that  the  clerks  recommended  by  them  should  be  appointed  to 
permanent  positions  and  urging  their  superior  qualifications. 
According  to  civil  service  rules  they  could  not  be  admitted 
to  the  classified  service,  for  no  one  who  enters  without  passing 
a  competitive  examination  can  be  transferred  to  a  competitive 
place.  But  there  were  very  few  places  left  in  the  unclassified 
service  and  the  only  way  Congress  could  provide  for  these 
census  clerks  was  to  enact  a  law  authorizing  their  transfer  to 
the  classified  service  whenever  there  was  a  vacancy.  If  that 
were  accomplished  we  felt  the  Commission  might  as  well  go 
out  of  business  for  the  next  year  or  two  as  far  as  department 
clerkships  were  concerned.  Whenever  favoritism  and  com- 
petitive examinations  come  into  conflict  before  a  Cabinet 
officer  favoritism  is  pretty  sure  to  win  because  each  depart- 
ment depends  so  much  upon  Congress  for  appropriations  and 
friendly  legislation  that  the  wishes  of  Congressmen  prevail 
over  the  merits  of  the  applicants.  In  this  case  then  the  great 
bulk  of  appointments  would  be  made,  not  through  examina- 
tions but  by  transfers.  It  was  not  long  before  such  a  bill  was 
introduced  and  we  determined  to  oppose  it. 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  CENSUS  CLERKS       8i 

Mr.  Proctor,  the  president  of  the  Commission,  and  I  ap- 
peared before  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
for  this  purpose.  I  made  a  statement  to  the  Committee  that 
we  did  not  object  to  incorporating  into  the  classified  service 
all  who  were  to  be  retained  in  the  permanent  census  office 
but  we  objected  strongly  to  that  service  being  flooded  by  these 
temporary  appointees,  who  were  now  about  to  be  discharged. 
I  spoke  of  the  injury  to  those  who  had  already  passed  our 
competitive  examinations  on  the  implied  promise  of  the 
government  that  if  they  were  highest  on  the  list  they  would  be 
considered  for  the  first  appointments.  To  fill  their  places  with 
persons  appointed  on  the  nomination  of  Congressmen  would 
be  unjust.  This  measure  would  discredit  the  competitive  sys- 
tem and  lead  to  patronage  seeking  and  favoritism  in  place  of 
honest  competition.  If  the  census  clerks  were  a  peculiarly 
capable  body  of  employees  as  was  claimed,  they  might  attend 
our  spring  examinations  and  if  they  were  more  capable  than 
others  they  could  show  this  in  fair  competition. 

The  committee,  however,  was  violently  hostile  and  nothing 
would  prevent  the  House  of  Representatives  from  providing 
places  for  these  proteges,  so  the  bill  soon  passed  that  body  and 
came  up  for  consideration  in  the  Senate.  Mr.  Proctor  and  I 
now  appeared  before  the  Senate  Committee.  The  members 
were  more  reticent  but  were  evidently  opposed  to  us.  They 
were  afterwards  confronted  however  by  a  legal  proposition 
which  puzzled  them.  The  Supreme  Court  had  decided  that 
the  chief  officer  of  a  bureau  like  that  of  the  census  was  not 
the  head  of  a  department  within  the  meaning  of  the  Constitu- 
tion so  as  to  authorize  Congress  to  vest  in  him  the  power  of 
appointment.  These  employees  therefore,  it  was  feared,  had 
not  been  legally  appointed  in  such  manner  as  to  justify  their 
transfer  to  the  classified  service.  The  bill  was  therefore 
changed  so  as  to  provide  that  all  employees  of  the  Census 
Office  might  be  appointed  by  the  director  with  the  approval  of 
the  head  of  the  department  and  when  so  appointed  were  to  be 
placed  without  further  examination  under  the  provisions  of  the 
Civil  Service  Act.  Now  we  knew  that  the  spoilsmen  were 
defeated,  for  according  to  the  lav/  it  was  optional  with  the 

6 


82       SUBSEQUENT  HISTORY  OF  THE  CENSUS 

director  and  the  head  of  the  department  whether  they  should 
appoint  these  employees  or  not  and  we  knew  that  President 
Roosevelt  would  never  permit  the  head  of  any  executive 
department  to  flood  the  classified  service  with  these  parasites. 
I  brought  the  matter  to  his  attention.  Elihu  Root,  then 
Secretary  of  War,  who  happened  to  be  present,  argued  on  the 
other  side,  speaking  of  the  very  small  number  of  those  who 
were  interested  in  the  competitive  system  and  opposed  to 
the  desires  of  the  representatives  of  the  people.  But  the 
President  was  inflexible  and  the  appointments  were  not  made. 

THE  CENSUS  OF   I9IO 

When  preparations  began  for  the  following  decennial  census, 
Representative  Crumpacker  of  Indiana,  introduced  a  bill 
providing  that  the  force  should  again  be  selected  by  non- 
competitive examinations  and  therefore  subject  to  Congres- 
sional patronage.  The  fact  that  they  were  to  be  nominated 
by  Senators  and  Representatives  was  not  stated  in  the  bill,  but 
it  was  well  known  that  the  director  would  find  his  task  of 
taking  the  census  burdensome  and  unpalatable,  if  not  im- 
possible, if  he  did  not  take  the  men  who  were  foisted  upon  him 
by  the  members  of  Congress.  It  was  further  understood 
among  these  members  (in  order  to  secure  Democratic  support 
for  the  measure)  that  there  was  to  be  no  discrimination  be- 
tween Republicans  and  Democrats  as  to  the  number  of 
appointees  each  was  to  have.  Every  member  was  to  be  en- 
titled to  so  many,  whatever  his  politics.  In  other  words,  these 
places,  instead  of  being  the  spoils  of  victory  were  to  be  divided 
even  more  basely  between  the  two  contending  parties  as  sheer 
loot  for  which  a  struggle  was  unnecessary.  This  too,  was  not 
"nominated  in  the  bond."  It  was  merely  the  Congressmen's 
private  understanding,  the  "agreement  between  gentlemen." 

On  January  6,  1908,  President  Roosevelt  sent  a  special 
message  to  Congress  urging  that  the  census  employees  be 
selected  by  civil  service  rules  stating  that  the  Commission  was 
able  through  its  regular  channels  to  supply  all  needed  eligibles. 
He  declared  that  non-competitive  examinations  served  only 


THE  CENSUS  OF  igio  83 

as  a  cloak  to  hide  the  nakedness  of  the  spoils  system  and  were 
useless  as  checks  upon  patronage  appointments  and  that  the 
employees  of  the  two  last  censuses  had  been  far  below  the 
average  of  persons  appointed  by  competitive  examinations. 
The  additional  employees  would  seek  to  be  retained  in  the 
permanent  service  at  the  close  of  the  work  and  the  very  men 
who  most  strongly  objected  to  having  them  put  under  the 
civil  service  law  would  then  endeavor  to  have  their  transfer 
protected  by  that  law. 

But  the  President's  message  had  no  effect  on  Congress. 
The  bill  passed  the  House  by  a  large  majority  and  came  up  for 
consideration  in  the  Senate  where  it  was  pitiable  to  listen  to 
the  ridiculous  arguments  in  its  behalf. 

Its  advocates  still  prated  of  their  unwillingness  to  curtail  the 
"discretion"  of  the  director  in  making  these  appointments,  as 
if  he  had  any  such  discretion,  and  of  the  "aid"  which  he  might 
receive  from  members  of  Congress  in  learning  the  "qualifica- 
tions" of  those  whom  he  had  to  appoint.  The  bill  with  this 
spoils  feature  in  it  passed  the  Senate  by  a  vote  of  about  two 
to  one. 

It  is  extremely  fortunate  for  the  country  that  the  con- 
currence of  the  Executive  is  essential  before  a  bill  passed  by 
Congress  can  become  a  law.  In  regard  to  the  Civil  Service,  as 
well  as  other  important  questions,  the  Executive,  representing 
the  whole  body  of  the  people,  and  not  any  special  district  or 
interest,  is  the  one  branch  of  the  government  upon  which  the 
people  at  large  have  to  rely  for  the  protection  of  their  interests 
in  opposition  to  special  privileges  and  favors. 

A  committee  had  been  appointed  by  the  League  to  resist 
the  spoils  feature  of  the  bill.  President  Roosevelt  was  urged 
to  veto  the  measure  and  he  did  so. 

The  spoilsmen  in  Congress  now  determined  to  await  the 
advent  of  the  new  President,  in  the  hope  that  he  might  be 
more  amenable  to  their  designs.  President  Roosevelt  had, 
however,  conferred  with  his  successor  at  the  time  the  bill  was 
vetoed. 

I  was  again  made  chairman  of  the  League's  special  com- 
mittee on  the  census  and  on  January  7,  1909,  we  issued  a 


84       SUBSEQUENT  HISTORY  OF  THE  CENSUS 

circular  letter  detailing  the  abuses  and  demoralizing  effect  of 
patronage  appointments.  The  director  of  the  census  himself 
asked  to  be  relieved  from  making  these  appointments  and 
President  Taf t  told  Congressmen  and  others  that  if  the  bill 
came  to  him  in  this  shape  he  would  veto  it. 

Then  the  patronage  mongers  determined  to  take  a  new  tack. 
They  would  not  pass  a  census  bill  at  all  and  the  decennial 
enumeration  would  have  to  be  taken  under  the  old  law  by 
which,  as  they  thought,  they  could  retain  the  patronage.  But 
here  too  they  were  disappointed  for  they  ascertained  that  if 
this  were  done,  the  President  by  executive  order  would  require 
competitive  examinations.  Beaten  at  every  point  Congress 
finally  yielded  and  passed  a  bill  allowing  such  examinations 
as  to  a  considerable  portion  of  the  employees. 

The  act,  passed  July  2,  1909,  provided  that  the  additional 
clerical  force  required  should  be  subject  to  an  examination  by 
the  Commission  open  to  all  applicants,  selection  to  be  made  in 
the  order  of  rating,  the  act  going  even  further  than  the  general 
civil  service  law  in  that  the  director  could  not  choose  any  one 
of  the  three  highest  candidates  but  must  appoint  the  highest. 

The  census  appointments  were  of  four  principal  classes: 
the  clerical  force ;  the  supervisors,  some  330  in  number;  the 
enumerators  temporarily  employed  from  fifteen  to  thirty  days, 
amounting  to  some  65,000,  and  some  1800  special  agents  to 
collect  statistics  of  manufactories,  mines,  and  quarries.  The 
supervisors  were  to  be  confirmed  by  the  Senate  and  therefore 
could  not  be  made  subject  to  examination.' 

An  examination  was  provided  for  the  enumerators  but  it  was 
not  made  strictly  competitive  on  account  of  the  temporary 
service  and  low  compensation.  The  law  did  not  provide  for 
an  examination  of  the  special  agents  but  the  census  director, 
Mr.  E.  Dana  Durand,  who  was  a  friend  to  the  merit  system, 
prescribed  a  competitive  examination  to  be  conducted  by  the 
Civil  Service  Commission. 

It  was  felt  that  all  had  been  done  which  the  conditions  then 

*  President  Taft  did  the  utmost  possible  to  eliminate  abuses  by  prescrib- 
ing that  supervisors  and  enumerators  must  abstain  absolutely  from  par- 
ticipation in  all  political  movements  under  pain  of  dismissal. 


THE  CENSUS  OF  1910  85 

existing  permitted,  to  secure  a  non-partisan  census.  In 
regard  to  the  appointment  of  the  supervisors,  however,  the 
"courtesy"  of  the  Senate  still  foisted  some  improper  persons 
upon  the  service  and  this  in  its  turn  worked  injury  in  the 
appointment  of  the  enumerators.  The  friends  of  the  competi- 
tive system  believe  that  some  better  system  of  choosing 
supervisors  and  enumerators  must  yet  be  found  and  applied 
in  the  censuses  which  are  still  to  come. 


CHAPTER  VI 

CLOSE  OF  HARRISON  ADMINISTRATION 

We  must  now  go  back  in  our  narrative  to  the  administra- 
tion of  President  Harrison  which  we  left  in  order  to  bring  to 
its  conclusion  the  account  in  regard  to  the  census.  The 
appointment  of  Wanamaker  to  the  Cabinet  and  of  many 
discredited  politicians  to  other  places;  the  continuation  of 
Cleveland's  removals  upon  secret  charges;  the  partisan 
changes  in  the  post  offices  and  the  perversion  of  the  Census 
Bureau  to  political  purposes  had  given  great  dissatisfaction  to 
those  who  were  interested  in  civil  service  reform.  Moreover 
we  were  grievously  disappointed  that  the  President  had  made 
no  extension  of  the  competitive  service.  Those  of  us  who  had 
supported  him,  relying  upon  the  promises  of  the  platform  and 
the  candidate,  were  particularly  exasperated.  His  adminis- 
tration was  generally  unpopular  and  when  the  Congressional 
elections  came  on  in  1 890  in  the  middle  of  his  term  there  was  a 
sweeping  Democratic  victory  all  over  the  country.  In  Indiana 
which  had  supported  him  in  1888  the  Democrats  carried  the 
election  by  a  large  majority. 

Whether  it  was  on  account  of  the  wholesome  discipline 
administered  by  this  election  or  whether  it  was  the  result  of  a 
previous  resolution  long  deferred,  President  Harrison  now 
began  to  do  something  for  the  reform  and  on  April  13,  1891, 
he  extended  the  competitive  system  to  about  seven  hundred 
places  in  the  Indian  service.  But  considering  that  there  were 
still  in  the  whole  service  about  one  hundred  thousand  posi- 
tions still  unclassified,  this  was  a  rather  pitiful  concession. 

Later  in  the  year  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  General  B.  F. 
Tracy,  established  rules  of  his  own  for  the  registration  of 

86 


CLOSE  OF  HARRISON  ADMINISTRATION       87 

laborers  and  for  admission  to  other  positions  in  the  Navy- 
yards,  removing  them  from  political  manipulation. 

The  main  body  of  the  postal  and  customs  service,  however, 
still  remained  under  the  spoils  system.  We  were  therefore  far 
from  satisfied  with  the  concessions  made. ' 

Later  I  determined  to  make  a  personal  appeal  to  the  Presi- 
dent, calling  his  attention  to  the  promises  of  the  platform  which 
were  still  unfulfilled,  and  on  December  26th,  I  sent  him  the 
following  letter : 

In  the  last  Republican  platform  it  was  declared  that  the  classified  sys- 
tem "should  be  extended  to  all  grades  of  the  service  to  which  it  was  ap- 
plicable." This  declaration  was  made  a  pledge  which  the  party  promised 
not  to  violate.  In  accepting  the  nomination  you  made  this  promise  your 
own,  expressing  your  concurrence  in  your  letter  of  acceptance.  In  common 
with  many  others  I  labored  earnestly  for  your  election,  with  confidence  that 
this  promise  would  be  observed.  The  Civil  Service  Reform  Act  designated 
post  o-ffices  and  custom-houses  having  less  than  fifty  employees  as  offices  to 
which  the  system  is  applicable  by  providing  for  its  extension  to  these  places 
whenever  so  ordered  by  you.  The  declaration  of  the  platform  could  have 
no  meaning  if  it  did  not  refer  to  such  offices.  The  able  Civil  Service  Com- 
missioners appointed  by  you  have  repeatedly  urged  that  this  system  bie 
extended  to  post  offices  having  twenty-five  employees  or  more,  yet  during 
nearly  three  years  of  your  term  you  have  not  made  this  extension.  May  I 
ask,  with  all  respect,  while  this  promise  remains  unfulfilled,  how  shall  we 
know  hereafter  upon  what  pledge  of  the  Republican  party  or  its  candidates 
we  can  rely? 

To  this  letter  the  President  five  days  later  replied  as  follows : 

I  have  your  letter  of  December  26th.  I  have  not  time  this  morning 
to  discuss  at  any  length  the  question  which  you  present  or  to  attempt  any 
restatement  of  what  I  have  attempted  to  do  in  the  promotion  of  Civil 
Service  Reform  movements  since  I  have  been  here.    My  thought  was  that 

*  During  this  year  I  did  what  I  could  to  disseminate  the  merits  of  the 
competitive  system  at  every  opportunity  which  offered.  On  September  3d, 
in  an  address  at  the  Social  Service  Congress  at  Saratoga,  I  spoke  on  the 
philosophy  of  the  spoils  system  as  well  as  of  the  competitive  system  by 
which  we  were  endeavoring  to  supplant  it.  (This  address  will  be  found  in 
Appendix  III.) 

On  September  20th,  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  League  in  Buffalo,  I 
spoke  on  the  subject  of  the  secret  sessions  of  the  Senate.  (This  address 
will  be  fotmd  in  the  Appendix  IV.) 


88       CLOSE  OF  HARRISON  ADMIN  I  ST  RAT  ION 

the  first  thing  to  do  was  to  satisfy  the  country  that  the  law  was  being  faith- 
fully and  impartially  administered  as  to  those  offices  already  classified. 
I  think  a  good  deal  has  been  accomplished  in  that  direction,  and  there  has 
been  an  important  extension  of  the  classified  service.  The  subject  pre- 
sented by  you,  as  well  as  some  other  suggested  movements,  has  been  having 
and  will  have  my  consideration,  but  I  am  not  now  prepared  to  announce 
my  program. 

This  letter,  as  may  be  imagined,  was  far  from  satisfactory. 
Moreover,  Mr.  Harrison  was  now  especially  discredited  in  his 
own  State.  He  had  disappointed  the  independents  because 
he  had  used  the  offices  as  spoils  and  he  had  disappointed  the 
politicians  because  he  had  given  them  to  the  wrong  men.  As 
the  campaign  for  the  Presidency  again  drew  near  it  was  also 
found  that  the  civil  service  law  itself  was  being  flagrantly 
violated  in  permitting  political  assessments  to  be  levied  upon 
officeholders  and  campaign  contributions  to  be  collected  even 
in  federal  buildings. 

The  Minneapolis  Convention,  at  which  Harrison  was  re- 
nominated, was  filled  and  controlled  largely  by  placeholders. 
John  C.  New,  an  intimate  friend  of  the  President  who  had 
been  appointed  by  him  Consul-General  at  London,  a  place 
then  yielding  $30,000  to  $40,000  a  year,  returned  from  England 
to  manage  his  campaign  in  the  convention.  More  than  140 
officeholders  had  votes  in  this  body  and  some  3000  others 
gathered  around  and  bore  down  opposition. 

Mr.  Blaine,  at  the  very  last  moment,  declared  himself  a 
candidate,  and  some  of  the  leading  bosses  of  the  Republican 
party,  Piatt  for  instance  in  New  York  and  Quay  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, to  whom  Harrison  had  yielded  much  but  not  enough  to 
satisfy  them,  now  came  out  as  the  supporters  of  the  Maine 
statesman.  Piatt  said,  "  It  is  a  much-to-be-regretted  fact  that 
the  President  has  placed  his  campaign  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  hold  office  under  him.  It  will  be  a  serious  matter  in  case 
of  his  nomination  should  this  fact  give  rise  to  the  charge  that 
he  was  forced  to  give  his  campaign  to  these  men  because  he 
could  get  no  others  to  assume  the  task''  But  "these  men"  were 
so  well  organized  that  the  convention  was  carried  for  Mr. 
Harrison,  "a  victory,"  said  Carl  Schurz,  "for  officeholders 


CLOSE  OF  HARRISON  ADMINISTRATION       89 

against  disappointed  officeseekers. "  Moreover  the  sweeping 
declarations  and  promises  in  favor  of  reform  made  by  Repub- 
licans four  years  previously  had  now  dwindled  to  the  doubtful 
declaration  of  the  platform,  "We  commend  the  spirit  and 
evidence  of  reform  in  the  civil  service  and  the  wise  and  con- 
sistent enforcement  by  the  Republican  party  of  the  law 
regulating  the  same." 

It  was  now  the  Democratic  party  which  was  enthusiastic 
for  better  things,  reaffirming  its  radical  declarations  of  1876, 
denouncing  Harrison's  nomination  by  officeholders  and  pledg- 
ing itself  to  a  reform  of  all  such  abuses ! 

Many  of  us  determined  that  we  could  not  support  a  nominee 
chosen  as  Harrison  was  under  these  conditions ;  that  Cleveland 
was  preferable  to  this  and  we  resolved  to  make  our  opposition 
as  emphatic  as  possible. 

I  had  been  invited  by  the  members  of  the  Massachusetts 
Reform  Club  to  address  them  upon  the  subject,  "Harrison's 
Record  as  a  Civil  Service  Reformer, "  and  on  September  loth, 
at  the  outset  of  the  campaign  I  presented  an  elaborate  r^sum^ 
of  his  shortcomings, '  which  was  printed  in  full  in  the  New  York 
Times  and  was  quite  generally  noticed  throughout  the  country. 

I  now  took  an  active  part  in  the  campaign,  speaking  at 
many  places  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey  and  then  returned 
to  Massachusetts  where  I  spent  a  week  upon  the  stump  at  a 
number  of  towns  in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston. 

It  was  during  this  week's  canvass  that  I  got  some  knowledge 
of  the  way  in  which  speeches  were  reported  in  the  daily  papers 
in  Massachusetts.  The  Boston  Herald  sent  each  morning  a 
stenographer  to  my  room  with  the  request  that  I  dictate  to 
him  what  I  was  going  to  say  that  evening.  He  transcribed 
his  notes  and  the  proof  was  sent  to  me  for  revision  in  the 
afternoon.  I  found  the  work  accurately  done  with  the  excep- 
tion that  at  the  end  of  every  few  sentences  there  appeared  the 
words  "Applause — laughter;  prolonged  applause,"  etc.,  this 
applause  having  been  given  wholly  in  anticipation.  The 
applause  was  not  always  administered  at  the  designated  places. 

» See  Appendix  V. 


90       CLOSE  OF  HARRISON  ADMINISTRATION 

When  the  November  elections  came  on,  Harrison  was  over- 
whelmingly defeated  and  his  own  State  gave  a  large  majority 
against  him.  His  course  toward  the  reform  of  the  civil  service 
was  by  no  means  an  unimportant  factor  in  the  result. 

After  this  defeat,  however,  he  did  something  quite  substan- 
tial to  advance  the  competitive  system.  He  included  in  the 
classified  service  all  the  clerks  and  carriers  of  the  free  delivery 
post  offices,  a  most  important  addition,  which  if  made  earlier 
would  have  taken  away  much  of  the  basis  for  our  criticisms, 
but  now  it  looked  like  an  effort  to  keep  in  place  his  own  Re- 
publican appointees.  But  whatever  the  motive,  these  legacies 
from  departing  administrations,  little  by  little  extended  the 
system  and  in  every  compromise  made  with  spoils  politics, 
something  was  always  gained. 

GEORGE  WILLIAM   CURTIS 

It  was  in  September,  1892,  in  the  midst  of  this  campaign, 
that  George  William  Curtis  died  after  an  illness  of  several 
months  and  at  the  next  meeting  of  the  League,  Carl  Schurz 
was  made  president  in  his  place. 

The  gracious  personality  of  the  first  distinguished  leader  of 
the  civil  service  reform  movement  in  America  cannot  be 
forgotten  by  those  who  were  familiar  with  him  and  partici- 
pated in  the  great  work  of  his  life.  His  presence  would  be 
remarked  among  a  thousand;  his  smile,  his  gentleness,  and  his 
charming  voice,  his  faultless  English,  and  his  wonderful  diction 
could  not  fail  to  leave  an  ineffaceable  trace  upon  the  memory. 

Mr.  Curtis  while  he  lived  was  the  unquestioned  head  of  the 
League,  presiding  at  all  its  meetings  as  well  as  those  of  the 
Executive  Committee  and  directing  its  counsels.  He  was 
followed  by  all  the  members  with  singular  unanimity.  We 
loved  him  dearly.  He  was  always  so  fair,  so  eminently  reason- 
able that  it  was  impossible  to  resist  his  winning  arguments  or 
to  refuse  to  acquiesce  in  a  leadership  which  secured  the  best 
possible  results  with  no  greater  antagonisms  than  unflinching 
loyalty  to  principle  demanded.  The  name  of  Mr.  Curtis  gave 
strength  and  dignity  to  our  organization  and  the  wonderful 


GEORGE  fVILLIAM  CURTIS  91 

eloquence  of  his  annual  addresses  gave  distinction  to  our 
meetings.  These  addresses  were  usually  written  out  in  full  and 
he  read  them  to  audiences  which  could  not  fail  to  regard  with 
admiration  their  literary  quality,  their  faultless  reasoning  and 
their  impressive  delivery. 

But  he  was  greatest  of  all  at  the  dinners  which  followed, 
where  he  spoke  extemporaneously.  On  these  occasions  the 
grace,  the  brilliant  allusions,  the  spontaneous  wit  which 
adorned  his  remarks  gave  them  a  beauty  which  cannot  be 
described.  His  last  after-dinner  speech  was  delivered  at 
Baltimore.  It  was  not  taken  down  in  shorthand  and  no  record 
of  it  is  preserved.  It  was  an  extemporaneous  poem,  the  most 
beautiful  of  its  kind  I  ever  heard.  He  began  by  likening 
Baltimore  to  the  city  of  Viterbo  in  whose  coat-of-arms  was 
found,  not  the  wolf  of  Rome  nor  the  winged  lion  of  Venice  but 
"La  bella  dama."  He  continued  in  the  same  strain,  every 
sentence  touched  with  delicate  imagery,  sometimes  with 
raillery,  sometimes  with  deep  emotion.  He  carried  us  away 
with  him  on  the  wings  of  his  fancy  and 'entirely  captive  to  his 
wonderful  oratory.  We  little  knew  at  this  time  that  these  were 
the  last  words  we  should  hear  from  his  lips.  Sometimes  his 
addresses  contained  the  inspiration  of  prophecy.  At  the  very 
first  conference  on  August  11,  1881,  that  led  to  the  foundation 
of  the  League,  he  uttered  this  memorable  sentence :  "We  have 
laid  our  hands  on  the  barbaric  palace  of  patronage  and  have 
begun  to  write  upon  its  walls,  '  Mene,  Mene,'  nor  do  I  believe 
the  work  will  end  till  they  are  laid  in  the  dust." 

During  his  presidency  the  annual  dinners  of  the  League 
were  graced  with  a  succession  of  wonderful  speeches  not  only 
by  him  but  by  Mr.  Herbert  Welsh  whose  fervid  appeals  were 
marvelously  impressive,  by  Charles  J.  Bonaparte  whose 
delicate  sarcasm  had  an  inimitable  literary  grace,  and  by  a 
number  of  invited  guests  distinguished  for  their  eloquence. 
I  have  never  heard  at  the  banquets  of  any  other  organization 
any  speeches  that  were  at  all  comparable  to  those  I  have 
heard  at  the  dinners  of  the  League. 

After  Mr.  Curtis's  death  this  feature  of  our  annual  meetings 
was  by  no  means  so  brilliant.     Mr.  Schurz  was  even  more 


92       CLOSE  OF  HARRISON  ADMINISTRATION 

powerful  than  Mr.  Curtis  in  elaborate  argument  and  wealth 
of  illustration  but  he  lacked  the  light  touch,  the  delicate  wit, 
the  literary  flavor  so  necessary  for  the  after-dinner  speaker. 
We  still  had  many  fine  addresses  but  the  average  was  nothing 
like  that  of  the  earlier  days.  Sometimes  however  there  was 
amusing  repartee.  I  remember  one  of  these  occasions  at  the 
Hotel  Savoy,  in  New  York,  at  which  Bishop  Potter  presided 
and  which  Mr.  Roosevelt,  then  Governor  of  New  York  and 
soon  to  become  Vice-President,  attended.  Mr.  Roosevelt  spoke 
entertainingly  on  the  subject  of  civil  service  examinations  in- 
sisting that  they  should  be  practical,  that  scholastic  qualifica- 
tions were  often  unimportant  and  he  recommended  that  the 
Collector  of  Customs  at  such  a  place  as  El  Paso,  who  had  to  be 
"handy  with  his  gun "  on  the  Rio  Grande  border,  ought  to  pass 
an  examination  in  marksmanship.  Mr.  Wayne  MacVeagh 
rallied  the  Governor  as  a  champion  of  civil  service  reform 
constantly  exempt  from  examinations  himself  and  one  who 
uniformly  hung  on  to  every  place  he  had  until  he  was  sure  of  a 
better  one.  Mr.  Bonaparte,  who  sat  next  to  me,  suggested  as 
a  modification  of  the  El  Paso  examination  that  the  candidates 
should  shoot  at  each  other,  the  survivor  receiving  the  position, 
a  suggestion  which  I  afterwards  related  to  the  guests  attribut- 
ing its  sanguinary  character  to  the  Bonaparte  blood  and  ex- 
patiating upon  its  manifest  advantages  in  saving  the  Civil 
Service  Commission  from  the  necessity  of  rating  the  papers, 
the  appointment  being  made  by  the  direct  process  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest. 

While  Mr.  Curtis  was  living  he  always  made  it  a  point  to 
encourage  the  efforts  made  by  the  younger  members  of  the 
League  to  spread  the  gospel  of  the  reform.  On  one  occasion, 
I  think  it  was  in  1890, 1  had  been  asked  by  a  hterary  organiza- 
tion of  the  Society  of  Friends  of  New  York  to  deliver  an 
address  upon  the  subject  in  the  lecture  room  of  Friends' 
Seminary  on  Rutherford  Place  adjoining  the  meeting  house. 
I  had  been  in  my  youth  a  pupil  in  Friends'  Seminary  and  there 
were  a  good  many  of  my  friends  in  the  audience,  but  what  was 
my  surprise  to  see  Mr.  Curtis  there  among  them  as  well  as 
Mr.  E.  L.  Godkin,  the  distinguished  editor  of  the  New  York 


GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS  93 

Evening  Post,  whose  services  on  behalf  of  the  reform  system 
have  also  been  incalculable.  After  the  address  those  who  were 
present  were  invited  to  take  part  in  the  discussion  and  Mr. 
Curtis  delivered  extemporaneously  a  very  admirable  speech 
on  behalf  of  the  reform  system.  Mr.  Godkin  also  was  called 
upon  and  in  illustrating  the  methods  of  appointment  under  the 
patronage  system  he  told  a  story  which  I  shall  not  forget. 

I  was  present  [he  said],  on  one  occasion  in  the  office  of  a  member  of  the 
Cabinet  when  a  Senator  came  with  a  delegation  to  present  the  claims  for 
office  of  one  of  his  constituents.  The  proposed  appointee  was  a  rather 
beefy  or  beery  looking  individual  but  the  Senator  in  urging  his  claims 
invested  him  with  every  possible  virtue.  Not  only  was  he  adequately 
equipped  for  the  filling  of  the  responsible  position  which  he  asked  but  the 
voice  of  the  entire  district  demanded  the  appointment  as  necessary  to 
harmonize  the  party  and  to  fulfil  just  expectations.  Indeed  any  other 
course  than  the  appointment  of  this  particular  man  would  be  disastrous 
not  only  to  the  service  but  to  the  State  and  to  the  country  at  large. 

After  the  delegation  had  departed  I  said  to  the  Secretary,  "That  man 
was  very  earnest  and  seemed  to  make  a  very  strong  case."  Whereupon  he 
opened  a  drawer  and  took  out  a  letter  addressed  to  him  by  this  Senator. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Secretary,  "  it  read,  "  I  will  be  with  you  tomorrow  to  urge 

the  appointment  of to  the  office  of .    Don't  believe  a  word 

of  what  I  am  going  to  say  to  you  and  don't  appoint  the  man." 

Nor  was  this  an  isolated  instance.  Indeed  the  general  run 
of  applications,  letters,  endorsements,  etc.,  on  behalf  of  appli- 
cants for  office  is  apt  to  be  of  just  this  character.  In  my  own 
town  I  know  of  a  petition  circulated  in  favor  of  a  man  for  the 
position  of  consul-general  at  Berlin.  It  was  filled  with  fulsome 
adulation,  while  in  fact  the  man  was  the  common  laughing 
stock  of  the  community,  not  fit  by  qualifications  or  attain- 
ments for  any  public  office  whatever  and  yet  that  petition  was 
signed  by  the  president  of  every  bank  in  town,  by  the  judges 
of  the  courts,  by  all  the  members  of  the  bar,  by  the  clergy 
of  the  most  important  churches  and  by  the  heads  of  our  lead- 
ing industrial  and  commercial  institutions.  The  appointing 
officer  who  depends  upon  testimonials  from  "prominent 
citizens"  relies  upon  a  broken  reed. 


CHAPTER  VII 
Cleveland's  second  term 

It  will  be  remembered  that  after  the  election  of  President 
Harrison  I  had  discussed  the  meaning  of  the  Republican 
platform  and  considered  what  civil  service  reformers  had  a 
right  to  expect  from  the  incoming  administration.  Harrison 
had  disappointed  us,  and  now  on  the  accession  of  Mr.  Cleve- 
land I  took  up  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  League  in  April, 
1893,  in  New  York,  the  general  question  of  platforms  and 
promises  from  the  beginning  of  the  reform  movement  and 
especially  the  platform  upon  which  Mr.  Cleveland  himself 
had  now  come  into  power,  what  he  had  promised,  what  the 
promise  meant,  and  what  we  had  a  right  to  expect.  (See 
Appendix  VI.) 

Mr.  Cleveland's  failures  during  his  first  term  forbade  any 
extravagant  anticipations.  Still  we  did  not  question  that  he 
was  friendly  to  the  reform  movement  and  would  aid  it  so  far  as 
he  could  withstand  the  pressure  of  his  own  political  partisans. ' 

^  Right  at  the  beginning  of  his  term,  President  Cleveland  announced 
that  he  would  look  with  disfavor  on  the  application  of  persons  who  had 
held  places  under  his  former  administration  for  reappointment  to  their 
old  positions  and  that  such  reappointments  would  be  made  only  where 
the  applicants  had  proved  to  be  exceptionally  competent  officers,  where  no 
other  available  Democrats  applied,  etc.,  etc. 

Mr.  Francis  E.  Leupp,  the  able  editor  of  Good  Government  the  organ 
of  the  National  League,  wrote  to  a  number  of  the  members  for  their 
opinion  in  regard  to  this  announcement  and  I  sent  him  the  following 
which  was  published  in  the  issue  of  April  15,  1893: 

"  As  a  matter  of  principle  it  is  hard  to  justify  the  new  rule.  A  man  who 
has  performed  his  work  well,  even  though  there  be  nothing  exceptional 
about  it,  would  seem  better  qualified  than  one  without  experience.     To 

94 


CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  TERM  95 

The  appointment  of  Mr.  Bissell  as  Postmaster- General,  of 
Secretary  Herbert  in  the  Navy  Department,  Secretary  Lamont 
in  the  Department  of  War,  Secretary  Morton  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  and  Secretary  Gresham  in  the  State 
Department  all  argued  well,  but  John  G.  Carlisle,  a  thorough- 
going politician  was  made  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Hoke 
Smith,   Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  Josiah  Quincy,   First 

take  the  chances  on  a  new  man  in  every  case  must  lead  to  some  unfortunate 
results.  Yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  plan  is  generally  popular,  and, 
when  I  heard  it,  I  did  not  feel  as  much  disapproval  as  it  seemed  to  me  I 
ought  to  have  felt. 

"  Civil  Service  Reformers,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  world,  have  a  certain 
sympathy  with  a  rule  excluding  any  class  which  is  clamorously  demanding 
spoils.  No  doubt  many  of  the  old  officeholders  constitute  such  a  class  and 
I  think  we  share  a  certain  diabolic  joy  in  seeing  their  hopes  thus  nipped 
in  the  bud.  The  men  appointed  by  Mr.  Cleveland  four  years  ago  to  the 
subordinate  offices — to  postmasterships,  small  collectorships,  etc. — were 
very  largely  local  bosses,  and  these  men  want  the  plums  again.  They  used 
their  offices  to  maintain  their  political  influence,  and  now  they  expect  to  use 
that  influence  to  get  the  offices.  If  we  have  a  new  set  of  men,  we  are  very 
likely  to  have  fewer  of  these  local  politicians.  Under  the  present  rule  I  do 
not  think  we  shall  have  so  many  editors  of  coimtry  organs  as  we  had 
before. 

"  I  can  hardly  blame  the  President  for  shutting  ofif  by  a  single  rule  any 
considerable  tributary  to  the  great  stream  of  office  seekers  now  surging 
roimd  him  at  Washington.  This  test  of  exclusion,  however,  is  by  no  means 
the  best.  It  shuts  out  the  good  as  well  as  the  bad — the  men  who  stay 
quietly  at  home,  as  well  as  those  who  throng  into  the  Departments  and  make 
life  a  burden  to  the  President  and  his  Cabinet.  There  was  a  principle 
enacted  into  a  law,  several  hundred  years  ago,  which  would,  if  it  were 
renewed  today,  accomplish  this  result  much  more  effectively — a  statute 
of  Richard  11. ,  under  which  the  great  appointing  officers  of  the  crown  were 
obliged  to  take  an  oath  to  observe  the  following  rule:  'That  none  that 
pursueth  by  himself  or  by  others,  privately  or  openly,  to  be  in  any  manner 
of  office,  shall  be  put  in  the  same  office  or  any  other. '  If  such  a  rule  as  that 
could  be  adopted,  there  would  be  some  relief  from  the  interminable  hauling 
and  pulling  that  now  goes  on,  and  the  chances  are  that  we  should  have  a 
much  better  class  of  public  servants. 

"So  far  as  Civil  Service  Reform  is  concerned,  I  do  not  think  the  rule 
adopted  by  the  President  will  have  much  effect  one  way  or  another.  It 
does  not  apply  to  places  in  the  classified  service,  but  only  to  the  positions 
which  still  remain  political  spoils.  The  final  way  out  of  this  business  is  to 
extend  the  classified  system  as  rapidly  as  circumstances  will  permit." 


96  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  TERM 

Assistant  Secretary  of  State.  These  were  unfortunate  selec- 
tions and  Mr.  Quincy,  who  had  the  consular  appointments  in 
charge,  soon  made  an  almost  clean  sweep  in  that  branch  of  the 
service,  removing  Republicans  and  putting  Democrats  in  with 
"unprecedented  vivacity. " 

Notwithstanding    the    determination    of  the   Postmaster- 
General  to  enforce  the  civil  service  law  some  curious  things 
occurred  in  his  department.     It  will  be  remembered  that  just 
after  Harrison  became  president  the  Republicans  improved 
their  time  up  to  May  ist  when  Cleveland's  classification  of 
the  railway  mail  service  took  effect,  in  turning  out  Democrats 
and  getting  in  their  own  men.     The  same  thing  was  now  done 
by  the  Democrats.     The  Attorney-General  on  May  5th  gave 
an  opinion  that  the  classification  of  free  delivery  offices  by 
Harrison  took  effect  only  after  an  examination  had  been 
provided  for  the  particular  office  to  which  it  was  to  be  applied 
and  the  politicians  now  began  to  get  very  busy  in  ousting 
Republicans   and   putting   in   their   own   men   before   these 
examinations  were  provided.     Indiana  furnished   a  typical 
illustration.     An    examination    was    to    be    held    at    Terre 
Haute,  a  free  delivery  office,  on  May  6th  and  something  had  to 
be  done  instantly  if  a  clean  sweep  was  to  be  made.     So  Daniel 
W.  Voorhees  one  of  the  Senators  from  Indiana  despatched  a 
letter  to  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  stating  that  the  local 
board  at  Terre  Haute  was  composed  of  three  intensely  partisan 
political  workers,  and  that  no  Democrat  contemplated  going 
before  it  for  examination,  feeling  that  justice  could  not  be 
obtained.     Upon  this  the  Commission  postponed  the  exami- 
nation until  the  13th  of  May  so  that  they  might  enquire  into 
the  matter. 

Now  the  statements  made  in  Senator  Voorhees'  letter  were 
entirely  without  foundation.  The  majority  of  applications  for 
examination  were  from  Democrats.  The  purpose  of  asking 
the  postponement  was  to  enable  the  new  Democratic  post- 
master, Mr.  Donham,  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of  the  employees 
and  put  Democrats  in  their  places.  Accordingly  on  Friday, 
May  1 2th,  one  day  before  the  examination,  Mr.  Donham, 
accompanied  by  three  political  friends  who  had  been  selected 


CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  TERM  97 

for  the  three  principal  places,  came  to  the  office  of  the  post- 
master, Mr.  Greiner,  and  demanded  immediate  possession. 
Greiner  answered  that  this  was  impossible  as  the  inventory 
was  not  completed  and  he  asked  for  delay  until  the  following 
Monday  morning.  Donham  refused.  Greiner  telegraphed  to 
the  Postmaster-General  asking  instructions  and  was  directed 
to  transfer  the  office  Saturday  night.  Greiner  then  asked 
Donham  to  vacate  the  office  so  that  the  business  might  go  on. 
Donham  refused,  remained  in  the  postmaster's  room,  and  about 
nine  in  the  evening  made  forcible  entry  into  the  principal  room 
of  the  post  office  and  stayed  there  all  night.  In  the  meantime 
he  had  sent  to  the  residences  of  the  letter  carriers  and  other 
employees  notices  that  they  were  dismissed.  On  the  morning 
of  Saturday,  the  day  of  the  examination,  Donham  with  his 
friends  attempted  to  take  possession  of  the  whole  post  office 
building  and  excluded  the  letter  carriers  and  other  employees 
therefrom,  in  some  instances  using  force,  and  he  again  notified 
these  employees  that  they  were  discharged  and  that  their 
places  would  be  taken  by  various  successors,  whom  he  had 
appointed  and  had  caused  to  be  sworn  in  on  Friday  afternoon. 
Greiner  again  wired  the  Postmaster-General  who  telegraphed 
to  Donham  that  he  had  instructed  Greiner  to  deliver  posses- 
sion on  Saturday  night  and  that  postmasters  could  not  employ, 
re-instate,  promote,  or  remove  carriers.  The  civil  service 
examination  was  held  on  Saturday  and  completed  about 
four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  and  the  papers  were  forwarded  to 
Washington.  That  night  Greiner  gave  the  keys  to  Donham. 
All  the  above  facts  were  ascertained  by  a  committee  of  our 
Indiana  Civil  Service  Reform  Association  consisting  of  Mr. 
Lucius  B.  Swift  and  myself,  who  went  to  Terre  Haute  and 
personally  investigated  the  case.  I  asked  Donham  if  the  men 
removed  had  been  guilty  of  any  misconduct.  He  answered  that 
he  had  made  the  charge  of  general  insubordination.  I  asked 
in  what  that  consisted.  He  answered  that  when  he  came  in  to 
take  possession  he  met  with  resistance.  I  asked  if  the  Post- 
master-General was  not  equally  guilty  of  insubordination. 
He  answered  he  did  not  know  about  that.  I  inquired  why 
he  was  in  such  a  hurry  and  he  said  on  account  of  the  civil 


98  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  TERM 

service  law.     Mr.  Swift  asked  if  he  had  worked  with  these  new 
men  politically  and  he  said  he  had. 

Upon  these  facts  we  made  a  report  (copies  of  which  we  sent 
to  the  President  and  the  Postmaster-General)  that  Mr.  Don- 
ham  had  attempted  to  take  violent  possession  of  the  office  and 
had  unlawfully  removed  the  letter  carriers  and  other  subordin- 
ates without  cause  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  a  complete 
partisan  reorganization  of  the  office  and  giving  places  to  his 
friends  before  the  civil  service  law  should  take  effect.  The 
Civil  Service  Commission  ordered  an  inquiry,  Theodore  Roose- 
velt, one  of  the  Commissioners,  went  to  Terre  Haute  and 
personally  investigated  the  case  and  on  May  25th,  he  made  a 
report  detailing  Donham's  illegal  acts  and  stating  that  in  other 
places,  Galesburg,  Bloomington,  and  Quincy,  Illinois,  Platts- 
burg,  New  York,  and  Columbus,  Georgia,  wholesale  removals 
of  Republicans  and  appointments  of  Democrats  had  been  made 
in  a  similar  manner.  On  this  report  all  the  employees  whom 
the  new  postmasters  had  attempted  to  introduce  into  the  ser- 
vice were  removed  and  the  old  employees  were  reinstated. 

In  this  Terre  Haute  case  the  effort  was  to  make  the  clean 
sweep  just  before  the  civil  service  law  was  applied.  But  these 
efforts  did  not  cease  even  after  that,  though  the  methods  were 
different.  The  plan  then  was  to  prevent  Republicans,  as 
far  as  possible,  from  taking  examinations  and  thus  to  get  a 
Democratic  eligible  list  and  then  to  turn  out  the  Republicans 
in  office  and  put  in  the  Democrats  who  passed.  Our  Associ- 
ation heard  that  this  method  was  being  pursued  at  Fort  Wayne 
so  Mr.  Swift  and  I,  as  an  investigating  committee,  betook 
ourselves  thither  and  interviewed  the  postmaster  and  some 
twenty  odd  employees  and  other  witnesses.  The  examination 
had  been  held  on  May  7,  1893,  but  Mr.  Rockhill,  the  new 
Democratic  postmaster  who  was  the  editor  of  the  Fort  Wayne 
Journal  did  not  take  possession  of  the  office  until  July  20th. 
It  had  been  previously  announced  in  his  paper,  however,  that 
"bright  young  Democrats  should  appear  at  the  examination. " 
It  was  believed  that  Democrats  only  would  be  appointed  so 
there  were  very  few  Republicans  applied.  In  the  unclassified 
service  all  the  Republicans  were  dismissed  except  one  (the 


THE  VAN  ALEN  CASE  99 

nephew  of  the  Postmaster)  and  their  places  (also  with  one 
exception)  filled  with  Democrats.  Then  the  dismissals  began  of 
the  men  in  the  classified  service.  In  no  instance  was  any  state- 
ment made  to  the  men  dismissed  of  any  complaint  against 
them  until  after  they  were  notified  of  their  discharge.  Some 
of  them  asked  the  cause  and  were  given  no  answer,  in  other 
cases  it  was  "for  the  benefit  of  the  service."  Sometimes 
charges  were  trumped  up  after  the  dismissal,  charges,  for  in- 
stance, of  the  non-delivery  of  certain  letters  for  which  the 
carriers  were  in  no  wise  responsible,  while  the  new  carriers  mis- 
delivered  the  entire  mail  of  certain  buildings  with  impunity. 
The  postmaster  excused  the  changes  by  the  pressure  for  place 
and  the  statement  "Everybody  has  his  friends." 

Our  committee  reported  these  matters  in  detail  and  by  the 
order  of  the  Association  we  sent  our  report  to  the  President, 
the  Postmaster-General,  and  the  Civil  Service  Commission. 
The  Commission  some  time  afterward  reported  that  of  thirty- 
six  employees  twenty-seven  had  been  separated  from  the 
service  and  that  the  presumption  was  that  the  postmaster  was 
controlled  by  political  considerations,  yet  no  action  was  taken 
upon  its  report. 

The  system  of  removals  upon  secret  charges  still  prevailed 
though  Postmaster-General  Bissell,  at  a  later  period,  put  an 
end  to  it  so  far  as  carriers  in  free  delivery  offices  were  con- 
cerned by  an  order  (dated  June  28,1894)  that  no  such  carrier 
should  be  removed  except  upon  written  charges  of  which  he 
should  have  notice  and  an  opportunity  to  make  defense. 

THE  VAN  ALEN  CASE 

There  was  another  event  during  the  early  days  of  Mr. 
Cleveland's  second  administration  which  greatly  weakened 
the  confidence  of  many  who  had  been  his  friends  and  sup- 
porters. 

Almost  immediately  after  Mr.  Cleveland's  inauguration, 
some  of  his  friends  learned  that  a  Mr.  Van  Alen,  a  wealthy 
man,  prominent  in  Newport  society  but  without  diplomatic 
experience,  had  contributed  some  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  the 


lOo  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  TERM 

Democratic  campaign  fund  of  the  previous  year  through  Mr. 
Whitney,  and  now  applied  for  the  office  of  minister  to  Italy. 
The  President  was  warned  of  the  scandal  which  would  follow 
such  an  appointment. 

Mr.  Horace  White,  editor  of  the  Nation,  wrote  him  on  April 
7th,  that  if  the  bargain  was  ratified  the  administration  might 
as  well  be  dead  and  buried;  likewise  the  individuals  composing 
it ;  likewise  the  Republic  if  it  followed  so  pernicious  a  precedent 
and  that  the  money  must  be  paid  back.  Mr.  White  stood 
ready  to  contribute  more  than  his  share  to  that  end. 

But  this  was  said  to  be  Mr.  Whitney's  "one  request"  of 
the  administration.  Mr.  Whitney  was  not  only  the  close 
friend  of  the  President  but  the  political  manager  to  whom 
more  than  to  anyone  else  Mr.  Cleveland  was  believed  to  owe 
his  election.  On  June  20th,  Mr.  Whitney  wrote  to  Mr. 
Cleveland,  saying:  "This,  as  you  know,  is  the  first  time  you 
have  been  approached  by  me  on  the  subject  of  appointments." 
After  some  delay  the  nomination  was  sent  to  the  Senate. ' 

»  On  September  28th,  I  wrote  to  Walter  Q.  Gresham,  Secretary  of  State 
the  following  letter: 

"  Dear  Sir: 

"  The  recent  publication  of  Mr.  Whitney's  letter  in  regard  to  the  appoint- 
ment of  J.  J.  Van  Alen  to  the  Italian  mission  makes  it  clear  that  Mr.  Van 
Alen,  a  gentleman  who  has  not  been  generally  known  in  American  political 
life,  contributed  a  very  large  sum  to  the  late  Democratic  campaign  fund. 
His  appointment  to  the  Italian  mission  would  appear  to  be  largely  the  result 
of  what  Mr.  Whitney  calls  'his  patriotic,  generous  and  cordial  support 
of  the  party  in  the  late  campaign,  when  friends  were  few  and  calls  were 
great.'  The  circumstances  were  so  similar  to  those  in  regard  to  the 
appointment  of  Mr.  Wanamaker  that  those  of  us  who  did  what  we  could  to 
make  the  country  ring  with  that  scandal  can,  if  these  things  are  true,  hardly 
afford  to  be  silent  now.  Such  an  appointment  is  sure  to  give  rise  to  the 
popular  belief  that  the  distribution  of  many  of  these  high  offices  is  too 
much  according  to  the  methods  of  the  auction  mart,  in  which  cabinet 
offices  have  commanded  their  hundreds  of  thousands  under  Republican 
rule  and  foreign  missions  their  tens  of  thousands  under  Democratic  adminis' 
tration.  The  question  whether  or  not  there  was  any  agreement  when  Van 
Alen  gave  this  money  is  not  by  any  means  a  conclusive  one.  The  prece- 
dent set  when  such  important  appointments  follow  such  important  contri- 
butions is  most  disastrous  to  the  political  moraUty  of  the  people.     Every 


THE  VAN  ALEN  CASE  loi 

The  Senate  confirmed  the  nomination.  The  appointment 
was  criticized  in  the  newspapers  and  elsewhere,  and  at  a  meet- 
ing of  the  executive  committee  of  the  League  on  November 
1 6th,  I  introduced  the  following  resolution: 

Resolved,  That  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  through  itf 
Executive  Committee  expresses  its  earnest  remonstrance  against  the 
bestowal  by  the  President  of  high  offices  of  State  in  return  for  the  contri- 
bution of  large  campaign  funds.  It  must  regard  any  appointment  made 
on  account  of  such  contribution  as  impl5ring  a  forgetfulness  of  the  trust 
conferred  upon  the  Chief  Executive,  as  a  violation  of  the  professions  upon 
which  the  present  Administration  came  into  power  and  as  an  example 
which,  if  followed,  must  lead  to  the  destruction  of  free  institutions. 

I  remember  the  occasion  very  distinctly.  The  meeting  was 
held  at  Clark's  on  West  Twenty-third  Street.  The  attend- 
ance was  large.  Carl  Schurz  presided  and  those  most  promin- 
ent in  the  reform  were  present.  Theodore  Roosevelt  was  also 
there  but  when  this  question  arose,  involving  a  direct  attack 
upon  the  administration  under  which  he  was  serving,  he  with- 
drew. 

I  called  attention  to  the  indignation  which  had  been  felt 
throughout  the  country  at  the  appointment  and  insisted  that 
there  was  no  civic  organization  whose  duty  it  was  to  speak 
unless  it  was  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League.  Mr. 
Schurz  in  supporting  the  resolution  said  that  if  Mr.  Cleveland 
were  a  candidate  now,  it  would  not  be  possible  to  urge  the 
moral  principles  on  which  the  last  campaign  for  him  was  con- 
ducted without  awakening  a  smile  and  I  remember  that  after 
the  meeting  he  said  to  me,  "A  great  many  people  supported 
Mr.  Cleveland  because  they  believed  he  would  be  incapable 
of  just  that  thing." 

Edward  Cary  of  the  New  York  Times  offered  the  following 

man  of  large  means  sees  this  way  to  political  preferment  clearly  pointed 
out.  If  there  is  any  reason  why  these  conclusions  are  not  justified,  I  should, 
as  a  supporter  of  Mr.  Cleveland,  be  very  glad  to  know  it." 

Secretary  Gresham  answered  on  October  loth  that  he  saw  the  force  of 
what  I  said  but  that  the  President  had  not  made  the  appointment  as  a 
consideration  for  the  contribution  made  by  Van  Alen  and  that  he  himself 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  patronage  of  the  State  Department. 


102  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  TERM 

resolution  which  was  incorporated  with  mine  and  both  were 
unanimously  adopted : 

Resolved,  that  the  League  through  this  committee  declares  its  opinion 
that  appointments  should  not  be  given  to  such  contributors  and  profoundly 
regrets  that  the  President  has  departed  from  this  rule. 

Mr.  Page,  editor  of  the  Forum,  asked  that  I  write  an  article 
for  that  periodical  under  the  title  "Are  Presidential  Appoint- 
ments for  Sale  ?' '  It  was  published  about  the  middle  of  Novem- 
ber, 1893,^  and  was  widely  reviewed  in  the  newspapers  under 
such  titles  as  "Offices  at  Auction,"  "A  Lasting  Scandal," 
"No  More  Van  Alens,"  etc. 

The  New  York  Evening  Post  which  had  supported  Mr. 
Cleveland  said: 

There  is  a  terrible  indictment  of  President  Cleveland  in  the  last  number 
of  the  Forum  apropos  of  the  Van  Alen  affair,  by  Mr.  W.  D.  Foulke  of 
Indiana.     The  worst  of  it  is  that  it  is  every  word  true.  .  .  . 

President  Cleveland  was  about  the  last  man  in  America  to  expose  him- 
self to  this  rebuke.  Nor  did  he  incur  it  hastily  or  ignorantly.  He  appointed 
Mr.  Van  Alen  with  a  full  knowledge  of  all  the  facts  and  after  months  of 
reflection.  In  one  short  hour  he  made  all  his  own  homilies  against  the  use 
of  money  in  politics  ridiculous  and  more  than  this,  he  let  loose  the  Republi- 
can tongues,  which  the  sale  to  Wanamaker  had  tied  up.  The  solitary 
defense  for  him  which  has  been  attempted,  so  far  as  we  know,  is  that  he 
could  not  refuse  anything  to  Mr.  Whitney,  who  had  done  so  much  for  him. 
But  he  owed  his  election  largely  to  the  popular  belief  that  he  was  one  of  the 
few  men  that  could  be  relied  on  to  refuse  what  was  wrong,  not  to  Mr. 
Whitney  only,  but  to  everybody. 

The  English  have  just  filled  a  similar  vacancy  at  the  same  post.  We 
published  yesterday  the  official  career  of  their  appointee.  Contrasted 
with  Mr.  Van  Alen's  it  is  enough  to  make  an  American  hang  his  head  for 
shame. 

But  Mr.  Van  Alen  did  not  go  to  Italy.  On  the  20th  of 
November  he  wrote  to  Secretary  Gresham,  declining  his  ap- 
pointment. He  admitted  having  made  a  large  contribution 
to  the  Democratic  campaign  fund  but  added  that  it  was  from 
disinterested  and  patriotic  motives,  and  not  with  the  idea  that 
it  entitled  him  to  special  consideration.     He  went  on  to  say: 

'See  Appendix  VII. 


THE  VAN  ALEN  CASE  103 

A  large  number  of  my  fellow-citizens  have  been  led,  either  by  coincidence 
of  circumstances  or  by  false  report,  to  look  upon  my  appointment  as  in  some 
way  inconsistent  with  the  professions  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  the 
President's  high  ideals  of  public  service  ...  I  do  not  think  that  I  could 
now  remove  this  impression  from  the  minds  of  many  right-minded  and 
thoughtful  people  whose  judgment,  I  frankly  admit,  may  possibly  be 
correct. 

It  is  clear  that  at  all  events  I  find  myself  in  a  false  position  with  refer- 
ence to  this  office  and  appointment.  Acceptance  of  the  office  would 
make  me  appear  willing,  for  the  sake  of  personal  gratification,  to  discredit, 
in  the  eyes  of  many,  the  political  party  to  which  I  am  attached,  and  to  bring 
undeserved  rebuke  upon  the  administration  which  has  honored  me  and 
whose  success  I  earnestly  desire. 

It  therefore  seems  to  me  sufficient  to  add  that  self-respect  compels  me  to 
adopt  the  only  other  alternative  and  to  decline  the  high  office  to  which  I 
have  been  appointed. 

The  President,  to  whom  this  letter  was  referred,  answered  it 
on  the  22d,  requesting  Mr.  Van  Alen  to  reconsider  his  resolve 
and  saying : 

I  did  not  select  you  for  nomination  to  the  Italian  mission  without  satisfy- 
ing myself  of  your  entire  fitness  for  the  place.  I  am  now  better  convinced 
of  your  fitness  than  ever.  You  know  and  I  know  that  all  the  malignant 
criticism  that  has  been  indulged  in  regarding  this  appointment  has  ho 
justification  and  that  the  decent  people  who  have  doubted  its  propriety 
have  been  misled  or  have  missed  the  actual  considerations  upon  which  it 
rests.  We  should  not  yield  to  the  noise  and  clamor  which  have  arisen  from 
those  conditions. 

Mr.  Van  Alen  replied  on  the  24th,  refusing  to  be  moved  from 
his  purpose,  and  adding: 

My  only  regret  in  this  decision,  which  I  must  beg  you  to  consider  as  final, 
is  that  it  is  contrary  to  the  personal  preference  which  you  so  kindly  express. 
But  I  cannot  think  it  would  be  advisable  for  me  to  invite  further  mis- 
representation by  taking  advantage  of  your  generosity. 

This  correspondence  did  not  however  wipe  out  the  unfortu- 
nate impression  which  the  appointment  made  upon  the  public 
mind.  ^ 

^  Thus  on  December  6th,  Mr.  Lucius  B.  Swift  wrote  me:  "I  think 
Cleveland's  letter  came  from  the  heart,  and  that  he  felt  ugly  at  being 
baffled.    Van  Alen  for  some  reasons  determined  to  get  out  of  the  scrape 


104  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  TERM 

Cleveland's  services  to  reform 

In  matters  where  Mr.  Cleveland  was  at  greater  liberty  to 
act  upon  his  own  convictions  he  rendered  most  substantial 
service  to  the  competitive  system.  In  the  first  place  he  kept 
upon  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  Mr.  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
the  most  efficient  and  aggressive  Commissioner  the  country 
ever  had  and  he  removed  from  that  body  Commissioner  John- 
ston, who  had  seriously  obstructed  the  work  of  reform  and  put 
in  his  place,  upon  Mr.  Roosevelt's  recommendation,  John  R. 
Proctor  of  Kentucky,  one  of  the  most  admirable  men  who 
ever  filled  that  office  and  who  continued  in  place  through  the 
subsequent  administrations  of  Mr.  McKinley  and  of  Mr. 
Roosevelt  himself. 

Mr.  Cleveland  also  gave  to  the  Commissioners  much  fuller 
cooperation  than  President  Harrison  had  done,  and,  while  their 
recommendations  were  not  always  followed,  they  felt  that  they 
had  behind  them  a  man  who  was  in  full  sympathy  with  the 
general  purposes  of  the  law. 

The  political  changes  outside  the  consular  service  were  not 
so  rapid  as  under  Mr.  Harrison.  Mr.  Cleveland  generally 
adhered  to  the  principle  that  officeholders  should  be  removed 
only  at  the  end  of  four  years'  service.  Moreover,  beginning 
in  May,  1894,  after  he  had  been  in  the  office  about  fourteen 
months,  he  made  a  series  of  most  important  extensions  of 
the  classified  lists ^  culminating  in  his  so-called  "blanket 
order"  of  May  6,  1896.  These  formed  the  most  valuable  and 
splendid  services  yet  rendered  to  the  merit  system  by  any 
president. 

and  wrote  an  adroit  letter.     It  does  not  in  any  manner  alter  the  facts.     I 
think  your  Forum  article  brought  the  thing  to  a  head." 

'  On  May  11, 1894,  assistant  teachers  in  the  Indian  Service,  on  May  28th, 
meat  inspectors  in  the  Bureau  of  Animal  Industry,  and  on  November  2, 
messengers  and  watchmen  in  the  Departments  were  included,  and  the 
classification  was  extended  to  custom-houses  having  as  many  as  twenty 
employees  so  as  to  bring  within  it  all  employees  except  mere  laborers;  then  a 
large  number  in  the  postal  service  was  added  to  the  competitive  class.  On 
November  17,  steamboat  clerks  and  transfer  clerks  in  the  railway  mail 
service  were  brought  under  the  rules;  on  December  12,  the  internal 


CLEVELAND'S  SERVICES  TO  REFORM        105 

By  this  order  of  May  6,  1896,  Mr.  Cleveland  extended  the 
classification  to  some  31,372  places,  practically  the  entire 
executive  service  throughout  the  United  States  with  the 
exception  of  places  subject  to  confirmation  by  the  Senate, 
fourth  class  postmasters,  laborers,  and  minor  positions  spe- 
cifically excluded.  It  was  estimated  by  Mr.  McAneny,  secre- 
tary of  the  League,  in  his  report  to  the  executive  committee, 
October  3,  1896,  that  the  number  of  excepted  places  was  865. 
All  chiefs  of  division,  chief  clerks,  and  disbursing  ojQficers  were 
included.  This  was  the  most  valuable  addition  ever  made 
at  one  stroke  to  the  competitive  service. 

revenue  service;  on  January  3,  1895,  the  superintendents  of  post  office 
stations  at  which  carriers  were  employed;  on  March  4,  the  census 
division  of  the  Interior  Department;  on  May  24,  all  places  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  not  previously  classified;  on  June  13,  every  employee 
in  the  Government  Printing  Office;  on  July  15,  the  clerical  force  in  the 
various  pension  agencies  and  on  March  20,  1896,  the  employees  of  Indian 
agencies  and  school  employees  not  previously  included. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SUPERANNUATION 

At  the  meeting  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League 
held  in  Washington,  December  12  and  13,  1895,  I  brought 
formally  to  the  attention  of  that  body  the  question  of  super- 
annuation in  the  civil  service.  It  seemed  to  me  that  since 
the  indefinite  tenure  of  office  established  by  the  competitive 
system  might  tend  to  increase  the  number  of  the  super- 
annuated, it  was  the  duty  of  the  League  to  consider  the  matter 
and  to  take  measures  to  prevent  the  evils  of  superannuation 
before  these  should  become  formidable.  I  had  indeed  sub- 
mitted this  question  four  years  previously  to  George  Wm. 
Curtis  with  a  scheme  of  competitive  examinations  for  pro- 
motions and  demotions  within  the  service.  He  presented 
this  to  the  executive  committee  several  of  whom  approved 
the  project  but  no  action  was  taken  in  regard  to  it.  And  now 
at  the  Washington  meeting  in  1895,  I  delivered  a  short  address 
urging  that  some  plan  should  be  adopted  by  which  the  "barn- 
acles" might  be  removed. 

I  found,  however,  that  there  was  strong  opposition.  We 
were  making  such  satisfactory  progress  that  many  protested 
against  throwing  such  an  apple  of  discord  into  our  midst. 
Nothing  was  then  done,  but  I  persisted  year  after  year  until 
on  October  4,  1899,  a  special  committee  to  investigate  the 
matter  was  appointed  consisting  of  Richard  Henry  Dana, 
Silas  W.  Burt  (former  surveyor  of  the  Port  of  New  York),  and 
myself.  We  went  into  the  subject  elaborately  but  it  was  not 
until  the  annual  meeting  of  December,  1900,  that  our  report 
was  finally  presented  to  the  League.^ 

»  We  showed  in  this  report  that  in  the  departments  in  Washington  in 

106 


SUPERANNUATION  107 

We  unanimously  recommended  a  system  requiring  life 
insurance  on  the  deferred  annuity  plan  by  all  employees 
during  probation  as  a  prerequisite  to  final  appointment,  the 
policies  to  be  non-assignable  and  in  government  control  and 
secured  by  deposits  from  the  insurance  companies  also  in 
government  control.  The  exact  age  at  which  the  annuities 
should  be  payable  might  vary  for  different  kinds  of  service 
and  the  details  should  be  arranged  by  a  commission  com- 
posed of  Civil  Service  Commissioners  and  experienced  officials 
of  the  departments. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  I  became  one  of  the  Civil 
Service  Commissioners.  The  Commission  made  a  careful 
examination  of  the  subject  and  collected  the  data  for  determin- 
ing the  deductions  which  would  be  required  from  salaries  for 
the  purpose  of  paying  annuities  to  the  superannuated  and  dis- 
abled. The  results  were  tabulated  and  submitted  to  actuaries 
and  their  conclusions  were  set  forth  in  an  appendix  to  the 
annual  report  of  the  Commission  for  1902.  In  this  report  I 
also  incorporated  some  observations  leading  to  the  same 
conclusions  as  that  reached  by  the  League. 

On  February  23,  1904,  I  was  called  as  a  witness  before  the 
Committee  on  Civil  Service  Reform  of  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives, detailed  the  arguments  and  facts  set  forth  by  the  Com- 
mission and  offered  as  a  suggestion  for  legislation  a  draft  of  a 
bill  to  require  annuity  policies. 

The  various  members  of  the  Committee  examined  me  at 
some  length.  It  was  suggested  that  the  government  could 
provide  an  annuity  more  cheaply  than  any  insurance  com- 
pany.    I  answered  that  I  believed  this  was  not  the  case,  since 

1893,  only  two  per  cent,  of  the  employees  were  over  seventy  years  of  age,  in 
1900  very  little  more  than  two  per  cent.  Still,  as  the  evil  might  grow,  we 
considered  the  following  remedies: 

I.  A  civil  pension  list.  2.  A  retirement  fund  to  be  made  up  by 
deductions  from  salaries.  3.  Endowment  or  deferred  annuity  insurance 
from  all  seeking  admission.  4.  The  forced  retirement  of  a  certain  per- 
centage of  employees  each  year.  5.  Recurring  examinations  for  pro- 
motion, reduction,  and  dismissals.  6.  A  daily  record  of  efficiency  for  the 
same  purpose.  7.  Fixed  terms  of  office.  8.  Forced  retirement  at  a 
certain  age.    Also  certain  combinations  of  the  foregoing. 


108  SUPERANNUATION 

the  government  must  confine  itself  to  certain  kinds  of  securi- 
ties for  investment  and  an  insurance  company  could  get  a 
higher  rate  of  interest.  Moreover  the  premiums  could  be 
made  lower  for  government  employees  than  for  others  since 
the  commissions  paid  to  agents  constituted  a  large  part  of  the 
cost  to  insurance  companies  and  a  considerable  part  of  that 
cost  might  be  eliminated.  The  companies  had  assured  us  that 
they  could  insure  government  employees  much  cheaper  than 


'  In  1 90 1,  after  I  had  become  a  member  of  the  Civil  vService  Com- 
mission and  had  ceased  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  work  of  the  League, 
another  committee  on  superannuation  was  appointed.  In  1906,  that 
committee  presented  an  exhaustive  report  coming  substantially  to  the  same 
conclusion  as  the  first  committee. 

"We  recommend,"  says  the  report,  "that,  if  any  enforced  provision  for 
superannuation  be  deemed  advisable,  it  take  the  Australian  form  of  a 
deferred  annuity  policy,  which  candidates  for  office  shall  be  required  to 
take  out  in  some  company  before  final  appointment.  As  this  would  not 
apply  to  those  who  are  at  present  in  the  service,  we  recommend  that  a 
record  be  kept  of  the  amount  of  work  done  by  employees  over  sixty-five 
years  of  age  and  that  their  salaries  be  reduced  in  proportion  to  the  amount 
by  which  their  work  falls  short  of  that  of  a  thoroughly  efficient  employee. 
This  would  be  at  once  fair  to  the  government,  and  humane  to  the  office- 
holders." 

In  1907,  the  committee  of  the  League  again  recommended  the  Australian 
system  to  be  supplemented  however  by  a  gift  of  annuities  from  the  govern- 
ment to  the  superannuated  persons  already  in  the  service.  The  policies 
were  to  provide  that  th«  sums  paid  should  be  returned  with  interest  if  the 
employee  was  separated  by  death  or  illness,  but  if  he  voluntarily  resigned  or 
was  removed  for  misconduct  or  neglect  he  should  be  entitled  only  to  a 
paid  up  policy  based  on  premiums  already  paid  and  good  at  the  retiring 
age  only.  The  plan  would  discourage  resignations  during  the  years  of 
efficiency,  an  evil  which  had  already  become  serious,  nearly  eight  per 
cent,  resigning  annually. 

The  proposition  of  the  League  for  deferred  annuity  policies  to  be  issued 
by  insurance  companies  (which  has  always  seemed  to  me  the  best)  was  not, 
however,  popular  in  Congress  and  a  variety  of  bills  were  introduced,  mostly 
impracticable,  proposing  deductions  from  salaries  which  would  in  the  end 
be  found  inadequate.  The  committee  on  superannuation  therefore,  seeing 
the  trend  of  probable  legislation,  considered  it  wiser  to  suggest  what  this 
legislation  should  be  in  case  Congress  should  decide  (as  seemed  probable) 
that  provisions  for  old  age  should  be  made  directly  by  the  government 
instead  of  by  insurance  companies. 


SUPERANNUATION  109 

la  19 1 2  an  agitation  on  behalf  of  a  direct  pension  system  was  set  on 
foot  by  the  employees  of  the  government,  and  Congress,  instead  of  granting 
this,  proposed  as  an  antidote  in  a  rider  to  one  of  the  appropriation  bills  to 
eliminate  superannuation  by  fixing  a  seven  years'  term  of  office  for  employ- 
ees! The  bill  was  actually  passed  in  this  shape.  The  League  appealed  to 
the  President  to  veto  it,  which  he  did.  This  incident  showed  the  danger 
of  permitting  the  question  of  superannuation  to  go  on  indefinitely  without 
some  solution. 

*v.  In  March,  19 17,  the  superannuation  committee  of  the  League  reported  to 
the  Coimcil  endorsing  the  Pomerene  Retirement  bill  then  pending  in  the 
Senate.  This  bill  provided  for  deductions  which  would  be  sufficient 
with  4%  compounded  annually  to  purchase  an  annuity  from  the  United 
States  equal  to  one  half  of  the  employee's  annual  salary  after  twenty 
years  of  service  and  proportionately  for  smaller  periods,  the  annuity 
to  be  payable  when  he  became  seventy  years  of  age.  The  deductions  were 
to  be  invested  in  federal.  State,  or  municipal  bonds  under  charge  of  a  board 
of  investment.  A  separate  account  was  to  be  kept  with  each  individual  and 
upon  his  separation  from  the  service  he  might  withdraw  his  deductions 
with  the  accumulations  thereon. 

The  report  endorsing  this  bill  said  it  should  be  amended  so  as  to  make 
clear  that  whether  the  employee's  separation  were  voluntary  or  enforced  his 
deductions  with  accumulations  should  be  returned  to  him  or  in  case  of  his 
death  to  his  estate.  It  is  evident  that  the  committee  had  now  changed  its 
position.  Instead  of  requiring  deferred  annuity  policies  the  government 
itself  was  to  become  the  insurer  and,  by  recommending  the  return  to  the 
employee  of  all  the  deductions  made  from  his  salary  with  compound  interest 
thereon,  the  committee  seems  to  have  disregarded  its  previous  argument 
that  this  would  encourage  resignations  among  the  most  efficient  in  the 
civil  service.  The  Council,  while  approving  the  general  principle  of 
retirement  allowances,  recommitted  the  report  to  the  committee  for 
further  consideration,  and  the  question  is  still  pending  before  the 
League. 

No  act  providing  for  superannuation  allowances  has  yet  been  passed. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    FIRST    BRYAN    CAMPAIGN — McKINLEY's     ADMINISTRATION 

Up  to  this  time  the  presidential  candidates  of  both  parties, 
whatever  their  official  derelictions,  had  been  personally  friendly 
to  civil  service  reform  and  the  platforms  of  the  two  principal 
parties  had  in  some  shape  or  other  given  it  at  least  their 
nominal  adherence.  But  now  a  campaign  was  approaching 
in  which  the  Democratic  party  and  its  candidate  were  to  be 
openly  hostile. 

It  was  those  who  were  out  of  power  who  saw  most  clearly  at 
this  time  the  excellence  of  the  merit  system  and  resolved  that 
"the  civil  service  law  was  placed  upon  the  statue  book  by  the 
Republican  party  which  has  always  sustained  it  and  we  renew 
our  repeated  declarations  that  it  shall  be  thoroughly  and 
honestly  enforced  and  extended  wherever  practicable." 

In  addition  to  this,  the  Republicans  nominated  as  their 
candidate  Wm.  McKinley,  who  had,  six  years  before,  success- 
fully resisted  an  attempt  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
to  defeat  the  appropriation  for  the  Civil  Service  Commission 
saying,  "If  the  Republican  party  of  this  country  is  pledged  to 
any  one  thing  more  than  to  another  it  is  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  civil  service  law  and  to  its  execution  and  not  only  that  but 
to  its  enlargement  and  its  further  application  to  the  public 
service." 

Moreover,  Mr.  McKinley  in  his  letter  of  acceptance  on 
August  27th,  had  promised  that  the  party  would  take  no  back- 
ward step  and  would  seek  to  improve  and  never  degrade  the 
public  service. 

Wm.  Jennings  Bryan,  on  a  free  silver  platform,  was  the 
candidate  of  the  Democracy.     One  plank  in  that  platform 

no 


THE  FIRST  BRYAN  CAMPAIGN  in 

opposed  "life  tenure  in  the  public  service"  and  favored 
"fixed  terms  of  office  and  such  an  administration  of  the  civil 
service  laws  as  would  afford  equal  opportunities  to  all  citizens 
of  ascertained  fitness. "  Mr.  Bryan,  in  his  convention  speech, 
thus  explained  the  declaration:  "What  we  oppose  in  that 
plank,  is  the  life  tenure  which  is  being  built  up  at  Washington, 
which  excludes  from  participation  in  the  benefits,  the  himibler 
members  of  our  society."  In  his  letter  of  acceptance  he 
added:  "A  permanent  office-holding  class  is  not  in  harmony 
with  our  institutions.  A  fixed  term  in  appointive  offices, 
except  where  the  Federal  Constitution  now  provides  otherwise, 
would  open  the  public  service  to  a  larger  number  of  citizens 
without  impairing  its  efiiciency. " 

The  National  League  as  an  organization  had  never  hitherto 
taken  any  official  action  either  advocating  or  opposing  any 
candidate  for  the  Presidency.  But  this  non-partisan  attitude 
now  had  to  be  abandoned  and  our  executive  committee  in 
October,  1896,  published  an  address  to  the  voters  reciting  the 
declaration  of  the  Democratic  party  and  its  candidate  and 
adding: 

The  statement  that  life  tenure  is  being  built  up  at  Washington  is  wholly 
false.  All  persons  in  the  classified  service  are  subject  at  all  times  to  dis- 
missal, the  only  limitation  of  law  being  that  they  cannot  be  removed  for 
refusal  to  render  political  service  or  to  contribute  to  campaign  funds. 

The  policy  of  fixed  terms  of  office  demanded  by  both  platform  and  candi- 
date would  result  in  a  "clean  sweep "  of  all  public  officers  and  employees — 
competent  and  inefficient,  faithful  and  unfaithful  alike.  It  involves  the 
periodical  displacement  of  trained  servants,  the  substitution  of  those  who 
are  inexperienced,  and  the  complete  destruction  of  business  methods  in  the 
conduct  of  the  government  ...  It  is  one  of  the  chief  advantages  of  the 
merit  system  that  the  humbler  members  of  society  have  equal  opportunities 
with  the  most  influential  in  entering  the  public  service  .  .  . 

That  system  has  been  slowly  and  laboriously  evolved  out  of  the  neces- 
sities of  our  public  service  and  the  conditions  of  our  political  life.  It  has 
added  greatly  to  the  economy  and  efficiency  of  administration.  It  has 
given  a  new  incentive  to  praiseworthy  ambition  and  effort.  It  has  opened 
a  new  career  to  industry  and  capability  and^  more  than  all,  it  has  removed 
from  our  politics  much  of  the  temptation  to  corrupt  and  mercenary  conduct. 
The  subordinate  places  in  the  government  have  become,  for  the  first  time, 
positions  of  public  trust  instead  of  rewards  for  partisan  service. 

The  merit  system — the  product  of  a  generation  of  progress — will,  if  the 


112  THE  FIRST  BRYAN  CAMPAIGN 

principles  of  the  Chicago  platform  be  enforced,  be  destroyed  at  a  single 
blow,  the  business  of  the  government  will  be  thrown  back  into  chaos;  the 
cost  of  its  maintenance  will  be  increased  by  many  millions,  and  the  spoils 
system,  one  of  the  gravest  perils  that  have  menaced  our  government  since 
the  Civil  War,  will  again  threaten  the  integrity  and  permanency  of  our 
institutions. 

I  took  a  very  active  part  in  this  campaign,  speaking  in  all 
sections  of  the  country.  The  principal  issue  was  of  course, 
free  silver,  but  the  attitude  of  the  Democratic  party  and  its 
candidate  on  civil  service  reform  was  also  considered. 

At  Chicago  on  October  17th,  I  addressed  an  audience  in 
Central   Music  Hall  exclusively  upon  this  latter  subject.' 

^  In  this  address  I  observed  among  other  things:  "What  Mr.  Bryan  desires 
is  to  build  up  an  office-seeking  class,  which  he  would  lure  to  his  own  support 
by  the  hope  of  the  places  to  be  distributed.  Terms  of  office  are  to  be  fixed 
so  that  more  office-seekers  can  enjoy  the  patronage.  The  civil  service  is  not 
a  public  trust,  but  a  personal  and  party  perquisite  and  as  many  of  his  fol- 
lowers as  possible  are  to  have  their  chance  at  it.  Under  Mr.  Bryan's  sys- 
tem of  administration  they  are  to  be  led  in  rotation  to  the  trough. 

"  My  friends,  the  people  of  our  country  have  more  sense  than  politicians 
think.  They  are  tired  of  a  system  of  patronage  which  regards  the  public 
service  as  a  largess  to  be  scattered  among  the  multitude  rather  than  a 
charge  where  duties  are  to  be  performed.  They  are  tired  of  the  demagogues 
who  appeal  not  to  their  patriotism  but  to  their  supposed  appetite  for  place. 
The  promise  of  a  general  distribution  either  of  the  offices  of  the  State  or  of 
the  wealth  of  the  individual  will  never  be  ratified  by  their  suffrages." 

StiU  more  discreditable  is  Mr.  Bryan's  statement  in  his  speech  at  Ada 
on  August  loth,  "that  he  was  not  yet  engaged  in  distributing  post  offices, 
but  that  he  hoped  soon  to  be. "  God  grant  that  that  hope  and  every 
iniquitous  longing  for  the  partisan  plunder  of  a  great  public  trust  may  be 
blighted  forever!  ;,  - 

There  was  reserved  for  the  present  candidate  of  the  Chicago  convention 
the  unique  distinction  and  bad  eminence  of  being  the  first  nominee  for 
presidential  office  willing  to  defy  the  moral  sentiment  of  his  time  and  to 
ally  himself  openly  with  one  of  the  great  crimes  of  the  century.  It  was 
reserved  for  the  convention  assembled  at  Chicago  to  make  the  first  open 
attack  upon  the  competitive  system. 

It  must,  indeed,  be  confessed  that  this  attack  is  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  conduct  of  the  candidate  and  his  followers  upon  other  issues.  It 
was  to  be  expected  that  a  candidate  who  publicly  appeals  to  selfishness  and 
class  prejudice  as  the  controlling  motives  of  political  conduct,  who  sneers 
at  the  patriotismof  those  who  demand  the  honest  fulfiUmentof  obligations, 
should  also  holdout  to  his  hearers  the  hope  of  the  distribution  of  post  offices 


MCKINLEY  PRESIDENT  113 

Washington  Hesing  the  postmaster  of  that  city  who  had  been 
a  sturdy  adherent  of  the  merit  system  which  he  had  con- 
sistently enforced  in  his  office  spoke  on  the  same  theme  at  the 
same  time. 

McKINLEY  PRESIDENT 

Mr.  Bryan  was  overwhelmingly  defeated  and  now  the 
question  arose,  Would  President  McKinley  be  as  good  as  his 
word?  In  his  inaugural  he  had  renewed  his  assurances,  but 
right  at  the  outset  of  his  administration  there  came  murmurs 
of  dissatisfaction  from  all  around  him.  Various  members 
of  his  Cabinet,  chiefs  of  bureaus,  and  others  high  in  author- 
ity insisted  that  Mr.  Cleveland,  by  including  practically  all 
places  in  the  competitive  service  after  so  large  a  proportion 
of  them  had  been  filled  by  Democrats,  had  been  unfair  and  that 
many  of  the  more  important  places  ought  now  to  be  excepted. 
There  was  this  much  legitimate  foundation  for  the  complaint. 
When  the  Civil  Service  Commission  drew  up  the  order  of 
May  6,  1896,  for  presentation  to  President  Cleveland  and  some 
doubts  arose  as  to  whether  the  classification  could  be  properly 
applied  to  certain  positions,  it  was  determined  that  the  wisest 
course  was  to  include  everything  and  then  ascertain  from 
future  experience  whether  there  might  be  some  cases  (which 
were  thought  to  be  extremely  few)  where  this  would  be  found 
impracticable.  If  so,  exceptions  could  afterward  be  made. 
But  naturally  when  the  new  administration  came  into  power 
the  disposition  was  to  multiply  these  exceptions  and  to  magnify 
the  need  of  them.  The  clamor  against  the  civil  service  law 
was  loud  and  vehement. 

The  League  saw  the  danger,  and  at  a  meeting  of  its  executive 

as  part  of  the  general  plunder  to  follow  his  election.  It  was  to  be  expected 
that  a  convention  which  denounced  a  President  for  enforcing  the  laws  he 
was  sworn  to  execute,  which  proposed  to  reconstruct  our  highest  court 
to  carry  out  the  bidding  of  the  multitude,  and  which  openly  offers  as  the 
price  of  a  vote  the  confiscation  of  just  debts,  would  also  appeal  to  the  rapa- 
city of  the  unscrupulous  by  promise  of  the  lawless  pillage  of  the  public  ser- 
vice. The  creed  which  inculcates  national  dishonor  ought  logically  to 
encourage  official  debauchery. 


114  MCKINLEY'S  ADMINISTRATION 

committee  on  February  i,  1897,  Mr.  Dorman  B.  Eaton  moved 
that  a  committee  be  appointed,  of  which  I  should  be  chairman, 
to  represent  the  League  at  Washington  and  that  we  be  em- 
powered to  present  communications  and  issue  pubHc  state- 
ments with  the  concurrence  of  the  president,  Carl  Schurz. 
The  motion  was  adopted  and  the  committee  appointed  and  I 
spent  considerable  time  at  the  capital  upon  this  work.  I 
interviewed  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  the  chiefs  of  bureaus, 
etc.,  who  were  most  dissatisfied. 

Mr.  Cornelius  Bliss,  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  was  one  of 
these  and  when  I  reminded  him  of  the  promises  of  the  platform 
and  of  Mr.  McKinley's  letter  of  acceptance  and  inaugural 
he  showed  considerable  feeling,  declared  civil  service  reform 
had  gone  too  far  and  that  he  would  not  have  taken  the  office 
had  he  supposed  he  would  have  been  so  crippled  in  the  choice  of 
his  subordinates.  He  complained  that  men  with  whom  he 
had  the  most  confidential  relations,  for  whose  acts  he  was 
responsible  and  whose  judgment  on  important  matters  he  had 
to  take,  were  appointed  through  the  Civil  Service  Commission 
and  that  he  had  no  opportunity  to  select  those  he  could  trust- 

It  so  happened  that  during  this  conversation  there  was  an 
employee  in  the  room  who  was  listening  with  considerable 
interest.  I  afterwards  learned  that  this  person  was  one  of  the 
"confidential"  men  whom  Mr.  Bliss  had  recently  appointed 
but  that  in  fact  he  had  known  nothing  about  him.  He  had 
simply  given  him  the  place  at  the  request  of  the  President 
himself  and  it  turned  out  that  he  was  a  man  who  had  been 
removed  during  the  previous  administration  for  improper 
relations  with  his  female  subordinates,  this  fact  being  of 
course  unknown  either  to  the  President  or  to  Secretary  Bliss. 
This  seemed  an  impressive  commentary  upon  the  supposed 
need  of  personal  choice  in  these  "confidential"  places. 

The  next  day  I  visited  Mr.  Benjamin  Butterworth,  Com- 
missioner of  Patents,  who  with  Mr.  McKinley  had  been  a  warm 
friend  of  civil  service  reform  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of 
Representatives.  He  told  me  that  he  considered  it  all  wrong 
that  chiefs  of  divisions,  chief  clerks,  private  secretaries,  and 
financial  secretaries  should  be  included  within  the  rules,  and 


Mckinley  president  115 

he  read  me  a  report  he  had  prepared  for  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  and  for  the  use  of  a  Senate  Committee  which  was  now 
investigating  the  question.  This  report  was  quite  rhetorical, 
it  spoke  of  the  classification  of  these  high  offices  as  tending 
to  create  an  "office-holding  aristocracy";  it  said  that  the 
Cleveland  administration  had  brought  the  reform  up  to  its 
high  water  mark  after  it  had  filled  these  responsible  offices 
with  its  own  friends ;  spoke  of  the  confidential  relations  which 
must  exist  between  the  Commissioner  and  these  officers,  who, 
he  said,  were  selected  by  a  Commission  which  knew  nothing 
about  the  duties  of  the  place  and  cared  little  about  them, 
insisted  that  the  head  of  a  bureau  like  the  Patent  Office  ought 
to  have  some  privileges,  and  that  if  the  necessary  changes  in 
the  rules  could  not  be  made  it  would  be  better  to  repeal  the 
whole  law  than  to  continue  the  present  system  of  civil  service 
gone  mad. 

I  reminded  him  that  his  communication  was  quite  different 
from  the  position  he  had  taken  in  Congress;  I  assured  him 
that  under  the  rules  he  was  allowed  to  select  his  chief  clerks 
and  chiefs  of  divisions  out  of  the  whole  civil  service  and  was 
not  confined  to  those  who  were  certified.  I  made  a  good  deal 
of  fun  of  his  report,  especially  the  peroration,  and  told  him  he 
had  taken  his  stand  with  the  ward  heelers.  I  think  he  finally 
saw  he  had  gone  too  far,  for  he  said  he  would  leave  out  all 
about  the  office-holding  aristocracy  and  the  repeal  of  the 
law,  and  would  add  that  he  considered  the  law  itself  needed  no 
amendment,  but  only  the  rules,  and  that  it  was  highly  beneficial, 
etc.  He  told  me,  however,  that  he  had  not  found  a  single 
Senator,  Congressman,  or  public  officer  who  favored  such  a 
monstrous  thing  as  the  inclusion  of  these  high  places.  I  asked 
him  why  it  was  that  his  report  was  all  on  one  side.  He  said 
he  thought  it  necessary  to  talk  strongly,  since  otherwise  the 
President  might  not  do  anything. 

I  next  learned  that  in  the  Pension  Office,  lists  were  being 
prepared  stating  the  politics  of  the  employees,  a  sinister 
augury  of  the  early  decapitation  of  the  Democrats. 

A  few  days  later  I  visited  Mr.  John  Sherman,  Secretary  of 
State.     He  claimed  he  had  always  been  friendly  to  the  reform 


ii6  MCKINLEY'S  ADMINISTRATION 

but  said  he  was  now  having  so  much  difficulty  that  he  did  not 
know  but  it  might  be  necessary  to  abolish  the  whole  system  1  I 
asked  him  if  he  thought  he  could  carry  on  the  business  of  the 
Department  if  that  were  done  and  he  admitted  it  would  be 
difficult.  I  asked  what  particular  trouble  he  had  found  and 
he  referred  to  the  appointment  of  a  chief  clerk.  It  seems  he 
had  discharged  an  efficient  chief  clerk  of  large  experience  and 
had  asked  for  the  appointment  of  one  Major  Michael,  an  old 
politician  who  had  filled  many  places  in  a  shifty  manner  and 
had  been  closely  associated  with  Mr.  Sherman.  The  Civil 
Service  Commission  thought  Michael  could  not  be  lawfully 
transferred  to  the  office  of  chief  clerk  in  the  Department  of 
State.  All  of  Mr.  Sherman's  objections  seemed  to  resolve  them- 
selves into  this  one  complaint  and  at  last  he  said  the  Commis- 
sion had  growled  but  had  finally  assented  to  the  appointment 
and  that  now  it  was  all  right.  When  I  asked  whether  we  might 
not  expect  his  cooperation  against  any  interference  with  the 
present  rules  he  assented  and  the  conversation  ended  quite 
differently  from  its  beginning.  When,  however,  a  day  or  two 
later  Mr.  Sherman  learned  that  the  Civil  Service  Commission 
had  referred  to  the  Attorney-General  the  question  whether 
Michael  should  be  transferred,  he  made  what  Commissioner 
Proctor  called  "a  diplomatic  remark."  He  said  "he  wished 
the  Civil  Service  Commissioners  were  in  hell. " 

I  also  learned  that  Mr.  Wilson,  Secretary  of  Agriculture,  was 
much  dissatisfied  and  I  felt  sure  that  a  great  deal  of  pressure 
would  be  exerted  on  Mr.  McKinley  by  his  own  Cabinet.  The 
Public  Printer  also  appeared  before  the  Senate  Investigating 
Committee  and  insisted  that  his  office  should  be  excluded  from 
classification. 

I  communicated  my  various  interviews  to  Mr.  Schurz,  the 
president  of  the  League,  who  wrote  me  as  follows : 

New  York,  4  May,  1897. 
My  dear  Mr,  Foulke: 

I  think  you  should  see  the  President  and  talk  to  him  frankly.  In  my 
opinion  we  ought  to  let  them  all  know  that  an  order  withdrawing  the  chiefs 
of  division  from  the  classified  list  will  be  regarded  by  us  as  a  cause  for  war. 

Bliss  has  sent  his  report  to  the  Senate  Committee  substantially  as  he 


MCKINLEY  PRESIDENT  117 

gave  you  to  understand.  I  have  a  copy  of  it.  I  think  we  shall  now  let 
the  press  open  on  him.  He  seems  to  be  much  under  the  influence  of  Boss 
Piatt  for  the  sake  of  "harmony. "     Harmony  is  Bliss's  weak  point. 

Let  us  watch  whether  he  has  not  some  party  heelers  dumped  upon  him 
for  almost  every  one  of  those  "confidential  places. "  He  is  in  an  irritated 
state  of  mind,  judging  from  the  tone  of  the  letters  he  writes. 

They  ought  all  to  be  made  to  understand  that  if  their  backsliding  goes 
any  farther,  we  shall  open  on  them  along  the  whole  line.  The  reactionary 
movement  is  indeed  strong  in  official  circles,  but  I  do  not  think  it  has 
touched  the  people. 

I  am  glad  you  will  stay  at  Washington  a  while  longer. 

Sincerely  yours, 

C.  SCHURZ. 

To  this  I  answered  on  May  7th : 

I  note  your  remark  that  "we  ought  to  let  them  all  know  that  an  order 
withdrawing  the  chiefs  of  divisions  from  the  classified  list  will  be  regarded 
by  us  as  a  cause  for  war. "  I  lay  awake  one  night  thinking  over  this.  I 
would  enjoy  a  fight  upon  this  subject  immensely,  but  before  we  go  into  a 
conflict  of  this  sort  we  ought  to  see  pretty  clearly  where  we  are  coming  out. 
Hitherto  we  could  afford  to  attack  an  administration  if  it  failed  to  do  its 
duty  in  respect  to  civil  service  reform,  without  much  regard  to  consequences. 
If  we  crippled  the  administration  the  country  would  not  greatly  suffer. 
The  choice  was  between  Harrison  and  Cleveland,  and  the  changes  from  one 
to  the  other  were,  in  the  end,  quite  sure  to  be  favorable  to  civil  service 
reform,  so  we  could  go  on  whacking  away  according  to  our  power  without 
much  care  where  the  blows  fell.  But  a  new  condition  confronts  us  now. 
As  the  only  alternative  of  a  Republican  administration,  the  black  spectre 
of  repudiation  and  national  dishonor  rises  before  us.  Nothing  will  justify 
us  in  adding  the  weight  of  a  feather  to  the  balance  on  that  side  of  the  scale, 
especially  since  the  Democratic  part}*-  announces  the  annihilation  of  civil 
service  reform  as  one  of  its  tenets.  Now  we  cannot  declare  war  without 
weakening  the  administration  and  the  Republican  party,  which  is  at  present 
the  ark  of  our  safety  (I  fear  my  metaphors  are  getting  mixed).  If  we  fight 
at  all  we  must  fight  to  win.  The  conflict  will  be  long,  uncompromising, 
and  bitter.  In  the  end  we  shall  either  fail  or  succeed.  If  we  fail,  then  it 
will  appear  that  the  fight  has  been  useless.  If  we  succeed  we  shall  have 
weakened  the  only  political  party  which  can  reasonably  hope  to  be  elected 
which  displays  any  interest  at  all  in  our  reform.  It  looks  to  me  a  little 
like  the  Turko-Greek  war,  where  the  invader  cannot  hope  to  gain  anything 
even  if  he  wins.  I  should  say,  therefore,  that  while  it  is  our  duty  to  remon- 
strate very  earnestly,  both  with  the  heads  of  departments  and  with  the 
President,  yet  to  attack  McKinley  himself  or  the  administration  generally 
can  lead  to  nothing  but  disaster.  .  .  . 


ii8  MCKINLETS  ADMINISTRATION 

I  have  also  just  seen  Mr.  Brosius,'  who  tells  me  that  he  has  had  a  con- 
versation with  Mr.  McKinley,  and  feels  satisfied  that  the  President  would 
not  allow  any  change  in  the  law,  but  only  some  changes  in  the  rules  and  the 
administration  of  the  law,  which  he  thinks  will  not  he  very  extensive.  I 
told  him  that  the  main  fight  was  for  the  chief  clerks  and  for  the  chiefs  of 
divisions,  and  that  I  had  received  a  communication  from  you  that  they 
ought  to  understand  that  such  a  change  as  this  would  be  regarded  as  a 
cause  for  war.  He  seemed  to  deprecate  this  strongly,  and  believed  that 
some  few  concessions  might  be  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  what 
we  have  got,  and  said  that  these  offices  were  not  numerous,  and  it  seemed 
to  him  that  they  were  quasi-political  in  character.  He  said  he  would 
regret  the  change,  but  did  not  think  that  we  ought  to  consider  that  enough 
to  constitute  a  cause  for  war. 

To  this  Mr.  Schurz  answered  on  May  8,  19 16: 

Nobody  can  he  more  anxious  than  I  am  to  keep  the  government  from 
falling  into  the  hands  of  the  silver  Democrats.  But  I  am  profoundly  con- 
vinced that  we  shall  only  increase  that  danger  if  we  fail  to  hold  up  the 
Republican  party  strongly  to  its  responsibilities.  If  we  let  the  Republicans 
understand  that  we  shall  feel  bound  to  stand  by  their  organization  whatever 
they  may  do,  they  will  do  no  end  of  mischief.  To  be  sure  when  the  emer- 
gency comes  I  shall  do  whatever  the  best  interests  of  the  country  may 
demand  under  the  existing  circumstances.  But  in  the  meantime  I  shall 
consider  it  not  only  my  duty  but  also  good  policy, — good  "political  policy" 
as  the  politicians  say — to  criticize  every  serious  delinquency  on  the  part  of 
those  in  power  as  straightforwardly  and  severely  as  possible.  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  Republican  party  is  now  on  the  high  road  to  defeat.  The 
best  friend  to-day  is  the  "disagreeable"  friend  who  tells  it  the  truth  without 
mercy. 

When  I  spoke  of  "war"  I  meant  that  such  an  act  as  the  withdrawal  of 
the  chiefs  of  divisions  from  the  classified  service  moist  be  followed  on  our 
part  by  an  attack  along  the  whole  line  on  the  Republican  party  for  its 
treachery.  And,  personally,  I  shall  make  that  attack  on  all  the  responsible 
parties  as  vigorous  as  possible.  Please  come  by  way  of  New  York  when 
going  home. 

To  this  I  answered : 

I  cannot  go  to  New  York  just  now.  I  see  fully  the  force,  of  all  you  say 
in  your  letter.  I  never  thought  that  we  ought  not  to  criticize  wrong-doing 
everywhere  as  severely  as  it  deserves  but  as  Curtis  said  of  Sumner  our 
criticism  of  the  administration  should  be  that  of  a  friend  and  not  a  relent- 
less enemy. 

I  also  agree  with  you  that  we  must  not  let  the  Republicans  understand 
that  we  shall  stand  by  them  whatever  they  do.     We  never  gave  that 

*  A  member  of  the  House,  friendly  to  our  reform. 


MCKINLEY  PRESIDENT  119 

assurance  even  when  we  were  members  of  the  party.  But  we  ought  not  to 
threaten  war  tmless  we  mean  to  make  war  to  the  death.  Probably  I  exag- 
gerated the  meaning  of  this  word  in  your  letter.  It  seems  to  me  that 
at  present  our  duty  should  be  limited  to  influencing  the  administration  by 
every  legitimate  argument  and  to  criticism  of  shortcomings  which  need 
not  be  any  the  less  candid  and  complete  because  its  tone  is  entirely  friendly. 

Our  committee  had  several  interviews  with  the  President 
in  which  he  declared  his  intention  of  supporting  the  existing 
system  without  material  change  and  of  extending  it  to  other 
places.  Indeed  for  a  considerable  time  he  resisted  the  on- 
slaught made  upon  him  to  restore  these  places  to  the  spoils 
system.  In  one  respect  he  greatly  strengthened  the  com- 
petitive service  for,  on  July  27,  1897,  he  made  an  order 
providing  that  no  removal  should  be  made  from  any  position 
subject  to  examination  except  for  just  cause  and  upon 
written  charges  filed  with  the  appointing  officer  and  of  which 
the  accused  should  have  full  notice  and  an  opportunity  to 
make  defense.  This  order  was  designed  to  abolish  the  iniqui- 
tous practice  of  removals  upon  secret  charges,  and  it  was 
greeted  with  general  public  approval.  But  in  a  number  of 
cases  it  was  not  observed  and  the  President  did  nothing  to 
punish  the  officials  who  violated  it. 

It  was  true  that  in  his  annual  message,  December,  1897, 
he  declared:  "The  system  has  the  approval  of  the  people,  and 
it  will  be  my  endeavor  to  uphold  and  extend  it. "  It  was  also 
true  that  in  this  session  of  Congress  he  opposed  all  efforts  to 
repeal  or  change  the  law.  But  in  the  administration  of  it  the 
executive  department  showed  great  weakness.  The  President 
gave  out  that  he  proposed  to  issue  an  order  excepting  certain 
important  classes  of  offices,  and  the  heads  of  departments  and 
bureaus  at  once  proceeded  to  act  as  if  the  places  had  already 
been  excepted.  Internal  revenue  collectors  removed  their 
deputies  and  appointed  others  in  violation  of  the  rules  under 
the  pretense  that  they  were  only  anticipating  this  order,  and 
the  Treasury  Department,  although  mildly  remonstrating,  did 
not  punish  them  for  so  doing.  In  the  Department  of  Justice 
the  same  thing  occurred  and  the  remonstrances  of  the  Civil 
Service  Commission  were  ignored.     In  the  Interior  Depart- 


I20  MCKINLETS  ADMINISTRATION 

ment  many  appointments  in  the  Land  Office  were  made  in 
disregard  of  the  rules.  Many  persons  were  employed  without 
examination  as  laborers  and  then  assigned  to  classified  work. 

The  Pension  Commissioner  circumvented  the  law  regarding 
the  appointment  of  examining  surgeons  by  creating  new 
examining  boards  and  sending  all  applicants  to  these.  As  such 
boards  became  classified  only  when  the  amount  of  fees  received 
was  three  hundred  dollars  annually,  they  were  treated  as  un- 
classified and  the  old  classified  boards  were  thus  driven  out  of 
business. 

In  the  Post  Office  Department  political  applicants  were  sent 
to  post  offices  where  free  delivery  service  was  about  to  be 
introduced  and  appointed  to  clerkships  without  examination, 
and  then  as  soon  as  these  offices  were  classified  and  these 
persons  were  thus  admitted  to  the  competitive  service,  they 
were  transferred  to  other  post  offices  which  had  been  pre- 
viously classified,  thus  crowding  out  the  men  upon  the  eligible 
lists  who  were  entitled  to  appointment.  Cases  of  this  de- 
scription acctunulated  until  there  were  more  than  a  hundred 
of  them  and  a  considerable  number  of  these  appointees  were 
then  given  the  important  place  of  Post  Office  Inspector.  In 
other  offices  like  the  San  Francisco  Custom  House,  persons 
were  appointed  to  positions  in  the  excepted  list  and  then 
assigned  to  other  duties  while  the  duties  of  the  excepted  places 
were  performed  by  classified  employees. 

Other  tricks  were  resorted  to  in  order  to  get  rid  of  classified 
employees.  They  were  laid  off  for  "lack  of  work"  or  given 
an  indefinite  furlough  without  pay  and  their  positions  immedi- 
ately filled  by  others. 

When  the  Spanish  War  broke  out  and  the  emergency 
appropriation  bill  was  up  in  Congress  it  was  provided  that  the 
additional  force  should  be  appointed  without  regard  to  civil 
service  rules  although  the  Commission  had  eligible  lists  from 
which  this  force  might  have  been  taken.  ^ 

In  the  consular  service  the  places  were  changed  even  more 


^  On  August  I,  1889,  Elihu  Root  succeeded  Mr.  Alger  and  the  political 
loot  of  the  War  Department  was  arrested. 


MCKINLEY  PRESIDENT  121 

rapidly  than  by  Quincy  under  the  Cleveland  administration, 
more  than  ninety  per  cent  of  these  places  being  refilled  during 
the  first  year.  The  pass  examinations  which  Secretary  Olney 
had  established  after  Quincy  had  looted  the  service  now 
became  a  farce,  so  much  so  that  at  first  the  State  Department 
refused  all  information  as  to  such  examinations,  declaring 
that  they  were  "strictly  confidential."  But  when  John  Hay 
became  Secretary  of  State  he  let  in  the  light  and  it  was  found 
that  the  questions  were  so  put  as  to  require  no  capacity  what- 
ever to  answer  them.  For  instance,  there  was  a  requirement 
that  an  applicant  for  a  consulship  should  know  the  language 
of  the  country  to  which  he  wished  to  be  sent,  but  the  questions 
were  so  framed  that  the  candidate  for  a  French  consulship 
was  not  asked  to  write  or  say  anything  in  French,  but  might 
state  in  English  his  knowledge  of  the  French  language,  that  is 
he  might  say  how  much  he  thought  he  knew  of  it.  The 
questions  on  the  different  examination  papers  were  all  the  same 
and  inevitably  leaked  out  so  that  the  "coaching  schools" 
had  complete  assortments  of  the  answers.  Out  of  112  candi- 
dates during  McKinley 's  first  year  only  one  failed  to  pass ! 

Abuses  crept  into  other  branches  of  the  service.  Tem- 
porary appointments  were  made  without  being  authorized 
by  the  Commission.  Appointing  officers  failed  to  assist 
the  Commission  in  preparing  examinations  by  stating  the 
qualifications  required.  In  some  cases  they  refused  to  ap- 
point those  on  the  Commission's  eligible  lists  and  chose  others 
instead.  Worst  of  all  when  violations  of  the  law  were 
investigated  by  the  Commission  and  reported,  not  a  single  man 
guilty  of  such  violations  was  dismissed. 

The  government  kept  paying  the  salaries  of  those  illegally 
appointed  as  if  the  civil  service  law  did  not  exist.  The 
Controller  of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Tracewell,  in  April,  1899, 
wrote  an  opinion  that  even  though  the  Civil  Service  Act 
declared  that  no  person  should  be  appointed  to  a  classified 
position  except  under  certain  conditions,  yet  if  a  man  were  so 
appointed  the  appointment  was  not  illegal;  that  the  civil 
service  rules^had  no  force  except  such  as  the  Executive  or 
head  of  the  Department  chose  to  give  them  and  that  all  per- 


122  MCKINLEY'S  ADMINISTRATION 

sons  on  the  pay-roll  would  be  assumed  to  be  regularly  ap- 
pointed !  Mr.  Tracewell  even  became  sarcastic  at  the  expense 
of  the  law  which  he  was  bound  to  enforce. 

If  this  ruling  has  a  tendency  to  muddy  the  stream  of  civil  service  reform 
which  should  always  flow  pure  and  clean  from  the  fountain  throughout 
its  course,  I  can  only  answer  that  it  would  be  as  futile  for  me  to  attempt 
with  my  limited  jurisdiction  to  purify  this  stream  as  it  would  be  to  bail 
the  ocean  of  its  waters  with  a  pint  cup. 

Mckinley's  order,  may  29,  1899 

One  would  suppose  that  when  the  law  could  thus  be  violated 
it  was  hardly  worth  while  for  the  President  to  make  an  order 
exempting  places  from  competition,  but  this  was  considered 
desirable  in  order  to  give  legality  to  the  political  appointments 
already  made.  The  President  had  delayed  issuing  this  order 
for  more  than  two  years.  It  had  been  the  subject  of  elaborate 
discussion  and  correspondence  between  George  McAneny,  the 
Secretary  of  the  League  and  Lyman  J.  Gage,  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  who,  having  been  previously  an  advocate  of  civil 
service  reform  was  now  put  forward  as  the  defender  of  the 
administration  in  this  backward  movement.^ 

But  remonstrances  were  in  vain.  On  May  29,  1899,  the 
President's  order  was  promulgated.  It  removed  from  competi- 
tion, as  then  supposed  by  the  League,  about  ten  thousand 
places,  although  it  was  later  ascertained  that  less  than  half 
this  number  were  actually  withdrawn.  It  made  valid  many 
appointments  previously  made  in  violation  of  the  law.  It 
weakened  the  rules  by  facilitating  transfers  and  reinstatements 
without  examination,  allowing  reinstatements  without  regard 
to  any  limit  of  time,  and  making  temporary  appointments  per- 

*  It  was  about  this  time  that  I  addressed  to  the  President  a  letter  con- 
taining the  following  in  reference  to  the  administration  of  the  Philippines 
recently  acquired : 

"How  can  we  hope  to  administer  the  government  of  our  colonies  success- 
fully if,  at  the  very  beginning  of  such  administration  we  take  a  distinct 
step  backward  in  our  home  government;  if  our  chief  executive  at  this 
critical  time  shall  remove  from  the  operation  of  the  competitive  system  a 
large  number  of  important  offices  and  turn  them  over  to  the  scramble  of 
place-hunters  and  political  adventurers?" 


MCKINLEY'S  ORDER,  MAY  29,  1899  123 

manent.  It  thus  permitted  new  and  serious  abuses.  It 
marked  the  first  considerable  reduction  in  the  area  of  the  merit 
system  since  the  civil  service  law  was  enacted  in  1883. 

When  the  new  order  appeared,  the  spoilsmen  hailed  it  with  a 
shout  of  tritmiph  but  the  press  of  the  country  was  almost 
unanimous  in  disapproval.  It  was  considered  the  first  impor- 
tant step  backward  in  the  reform,  a  step  which  the  President 
had  promised  not  to  take. 

It  was  not  long,  however,  until  the  President  made  some 
atonement  for  this  and  rendered  a  very  important  service  to 
the  merit  system  in  extending  it  to  the  Philippine  Islands  by 
his  instructions  to  the  Philippine  Commission  in  April,  1900. 
In  the  following  September  that  Commission  passed  a  civil 
service  law  applying  to  the  great  bulk  of  the  executive 
positions  in  the  islands,  and  a  system  of  rules  was  adopted 
more  comprehensive  and  satisfactory  than  those  in  the  Federal 
civil  service.^ 

The  Federal  Commission  loaned  to  the  Philippine  Civil 
Service  Commission  Mr,  F.  M.  Kiggins,  one  of  its  ablest  offi- 
cials, and  subsequently  Mr.  Leon  Pepperman  and  Dr.  Wm.  S. 
Washburn,  to  aid  in  organizing  the  service  and  administering 
the  new  law.  As  a  result  the  competitive  system  was  soon 
established  in  the  islands  under  peculiarly  favorable  conditions. 

»  (i)  The  scope  of  the  Philippine  Act  was  broader,  appljring  to  laborers  as 
well  as  to  higher  administrative  officers. 

(2)  Competitive  examinations  were  required  for  promotion. 

(3)  Examinations  were  also  given  to  test  the  qualifications  of  those  in  the 
service  to  retain  the  places  they  held. 

(4)  A  thorough  physical  examination  was  required. 

(5)  Power  was  given  to  the  Civil  Service  Board  to  administer  oaths,  sum- 
mon witnesses  and  require  the  production  of  official  books  and  records,. 

(6)  Whenever  the  Civil  Service  Board  found  that  a  person  held  office  in 
violation  of  law  and  certified  the  fact  to  the  auditor  and  disbursing  officer 
all  subsequent  payments  of  salaries  were  illegal. 

(7)  The  Philippine  Act  prohibited  the  solicitation  of  political  contribu- 
tions from  officers  or  employees  by  any  person  whomsoever. 

(8)  The  laws  regulating  preferences  to  veterans  and  natives  prevented 
any  from  being  certified  out  of  the  order  of  their  relative  standing. 

(9)  A  supplementary  act  passed  by  the  Philippine  Commission  directed 
a  re-classification  of  the  service. 


124  MCKINLETS  ADMINISTRATION 

DORM  AN  B.   EATON 

It  was  on  December  24,  1899,  that  the  League  sustained  its 
second  greatest  loss  in  the  death  of  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  the 
historian  of  the  reform  movement  in  Great  Britain  and  one  of 
the  most  eminent  of  the  pioneers  in  the  reform  movement 
in  America.  No  one  who  was  favored  with  the  opportunity  of 
association  with  him  can  fail  to  remember  his  noble  presence, 
his  benevolent  face  and  his  deep  interest  in  all  that  concerned 
good  government.  He  was  single  hearted  in  his  devotion  to 
the  merit  system.  Though  he  was  interested  in  the  better- 
ment of  municipal  government  and  wrote  an  elaborate  work 
upon  the  subject,  though  he  was  an  advocate  of  minority 
representation  and  other  devices  to  secure  better  political 
conditions  yet  civil  service  reform  always  stood  paramount 
in  his  affections.  Many  of  us  had  been  converted  to  it  by  the 
facts  and  arguments  of  his  convincing  history.  He  had  been 
the  principal  draughtsman  of  the  admirable  Pendleton  Law 
and  under  that  law  he  had  been  the  first  President  of  the  Com- 
mission, having  been  appointed  by  President  Arthur  in  1883, 
and  also  holding  office  under  Arthur's  successor  President 
Cleveland  with  whom  his  relations  were  most  cordial. 

His  work  in  the  establishment  and  organization  of  the  com- 
petitive system  had  been  of  the  highest  order;  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  law  he  was  not  quite  so  successful.  Impressed 
as  he  was  with  Mr.  Cleveland's  earnest  desire  to  advance  the 
reform  and  knowing  his  efforts  to  resist  the  tremendous  pres- 
sure upon  him  for  spoils,  Mr.  Eaton  had  too  much  of  the  milk 
of  human  kindness  in  his  nature  to  criticize  the  President  and 
call  him  to  account  for  his  inconsistencies  or  to  act  vigorously 
in  resisting  his  serious  infractions  of  the  law  and  when  some  of 
the  rest  of  us  investigated  and  exposed  the  abuses  in  the  public 
service,  he  seemed  to  us  far  too  ready  to  explain  and  to  excuse. 
He  was  very  elaborate,  often  prolix  in  argument  in  the  meet- 
ings of  our  League  and  its  Executive  Committee  and  I  have 
sometimes  felt  that  we  did  not  always  treat  him  with  the  tol- 
erance which  his  most  distinguished  services  undoubtedly 
merited.     He  prided  himself  on  being  above  all  things  "a  prac- 


CAMPAIGN  OF  igoo—SCHURZ  RESIGNS       125 

tical  man."  It  did  not  seem  to  some  of  us  that  he  was 
altogether  this,  but  rather  that  he  was  a  high-minded  ideah'st 
who  brought  into  the  struggle  against  the  spoils  system  the 
most  unselfish  devotion  and  untiring  energy.  His  magnanim- 
ity toward  those  of  us  who  sometimes  criticized  and  opposed 
him  was  very  great  and  there  were  none  who  after  his  death 
did  not  hold  his  memory  in  most  affectionate  regard. ' 

CAMPAIGN  OF   I9OO — SCHURZ  RESIGNS 

As  the  campaign  of  1900  drew  near  the  opinions  of  civil 
service  reformers  were  divided.  McKinley  was  the  Repub- 
lican candidate  and  Bryan  was  again  the  Democratic  candidate 
upon  a  platform  which  re-affirmed  the  hostile  declarations  of 
1896  against  the  competitive  system.  Anti-imperialism  how- 
ever was  declared  to  be  the  paramount  issue.  Some  of  our 
number  who  were  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  the  Philip- 
pines supported  Mr.  Bryan  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  and  his 
party  had  declared  their  opposition  to  reform.  They  felt  a 
deep  resentment  at  the  backslidings  of  McKinley  and  could  see 
nothing  in  his  extension  of  the  competitive  system  to  the 
Philippines  which  could  atone  for  breaking  his  promises  regard- 
ing that  system  in  the  United  States.  Others  believed  that 
there  was  far  less  to  fear  from  the  Republican  party  led  by 
McKinley  and  Roosevelt  than  from  the  Democratic  party  with 
Bryan  and  Stevenson. 

I  was  one  of  the  latter  and  took  part  in  the  campaign  in  favor 
of  McKinley.     Carl  Schurz,  the  president  of  the  League,  was 

^  The  New  York  Civil  Service  Reform  Association  appropriately  said  of 
him:  "  He  was  a  maker  of  laws  without  ever  being  a  member  of  a  legisla- 
tive body.  Important  acts  of  legislation  originally  drawn  by  him  stand 
on  the  statute  books  of  the  United  States  as  well  as  of  the  State  of  New 
York.  He  may  well  be  said  to  have  been  the  legislative  architect 
of  civil  service  reform  in  this  republic,  for  every  law  now  in  force 
that  embodies  the  true  principle  of  civil  service  reform  was  either  or- 
iginally framed  by  him,  or  at  least  shaped  in  its  principal  features  upon 
the  lines  which  he  had  originally  laid  down.  To  the  cause  of  civil 
service  reform  he  gave  its  most  instructive  literature;  to  it  he  devoted 
the  last  efforts  of  his  life,  and  with  it  his  name  will  forever  be  most 
honorably  identified." 


126  MCKINLETS  ADMINISTRATION 

such  a  pronounced  anti -imperialist  that  he  supported  Bryan, 
and  since  Bryan  and  his  party  were  opposed  to  the  merit 
system,  he  beheved  that  this  action  might  embarrass  the 
League  and  therefore  on  September  22,  1900,  announced  his 
piu-pose  of  resigning  from  the  presidency.  The  general  and 
executive  committees,  however,  declaring  that  it  was  the  uni- 
form practice  of  that  body  to  hold  that  the  independent  po- 
litical action  of  any  member  should  not  affect  his  standing, 
requested  Mr.  Schurz  to  withdraw  his  resignation.  But  he 
answered  that  he  continued  to  believe  that  his  position  with 
regard  to  other  policies  of  the  national  administration  would 
create  practical  inconveniences  and  he  persisted  in  his  deter- 
mination, so  at  the  December  meeting  of  the  League,  Mr. 
Daniel  C.  Gilman,  president  of  Johns  Hopkins  University  was 
elected  in  his  stead.  ^  At  this  time  many  of  the  members 
regarded  the  outlook  for  our  reform  as  a  very  gloomy  one.  I 
did  not  share  this  feeling  but,  while  I  concurred  in  their  critic- 
isms of  the  President's  shortcomings,  it  seemed  to  me  that  many 
were  disposed  to  look  only  on  the  dark  side  of  the  picture  and 
did  not  give  sufficient  credit  to  the  administration  for  the  good 
things  it  had  done.     It  was  the  President  who  helped  to  resist 

^  In  1907,  Joseph  H.  Choate  former  ambassador  to  England  succeeded  Mr. 
Gilman,  in  1908  Charles  W.  Eliot  former  president  of  Harvard  University 
succeeded  Mr.  Choate,  and  in  19 13  Dr.  Eliot  having  declined  a  re-election, 
Richard  Henry  Dana  became  president  of  the  League.  In  making  this 
choice  the  League  again  selected  a  man  to  whom  the  reform  of  the  civil 
service  was  the  leading  interest  of  his  public  career.  This  had  been  true 
of  George  William  Curtis  and  was  measurably  true  of  Carl  Schurz  in  spite  of 
his  manifold  activities.  With  Presidents  Gilman,  Choate,  and  even  Presi- 
dent Eliot  who  were  men  of  varied  and  illustrious  careers,  civil  service 
reform  had  been  only  one  of  many  important  public  questions  to  which 
their  lives  had  been  devoted  and  they  were  not  so  closely  associated  with 
the  detailed  work  of  the  League.  But  with  Dana,  civil  service  reform 
had  perhaps  the  first  place  in  his  heart.  He  had  inherited  his  devotion  to 
its  principles  from  his  d^istinguished  father,  he  had  been  a  member  of  the 
League  ever  since  its  organization,  had  been  chairman  of  its  Council  and 
had  taken  part  in  all  its  more  important  investigations  and  measures  giving 
it  nxany  years  of  devoted  service.  He  was  not  so  eloquent  as  Curtis  or 
Schurz  but  there  never  was  a  man  of  higher  ideals,  of  purer  personal 
character  nor  one  whose  knowledge  of  the  spoils  system  and  of  the  details  of 
reform  methods  was  more  thorough  and  complete. 


MCKINLEY'S  CHARACTERISTICS  127 

the  adverse  legislation  of  Congress,  it  was  the  President  who 
had  abolished  the  system  of  secret  removals,  and  it  was  the 
President's  commission  that  had  already  begun  the  work  of 
extending  the  competitive  system  in  the  Philippines. 

I  had  an  interview  with  President  McKinley  in  which  I 
urged  him  to  extend  the  civil  service  system  to  Porto  Rico  also. 
The  difficulty  was  that  the  rules  provided  that  none  but  citi- 
zens of  the  United  States  should  be  admitted  to  examination. 
The  inhabitants  of  Porto  Rico  had  been  declared  to  be  citizens 
of  that  island  but  had  not  been  created  citizens  of  the  United 
States.  I  considered  that  they  were  such  in  the  international 
sense  which  required  allegiance  on  their  part  and  protection 
on  ours  but  since  there  was  a  difference  of  opinion  on  that  sub- 
ject the  President  submitted  the  matter  to  the  Attorney-Gen- 
eral and  gave  me  the  assurance  that  if  it  were  held  they  were 
not  citizens  of  this  country  an  amendment  of  the  rules  would 
be  made  extending  the  right  of  examination  to  them.  Shortly 
afterwards  the  system  was  extended  to  the  Customs  service 
both  there  and  in  Hawaii. 

MCKINLEY'S   CHARACTERISTICS 

In  this  interview  I  was  struck  with  Mr.  McKinley's  extra- 
ordinary skill  in  conversation,  his  diplomatic  temperament,  and 
his  very  accurate  knowledge  of  himian  nature.  He  contrived 
to  say  what  he  desired  without  offending  and  much  more 
adroitly  than  the  presidents  who  had  preceded  him.  There 
was  a  saying  current  in  Washington  attributed  to  a  Congress- 
man who  had  failed  to  get  what  he  wanted,  that  Harrison  used 
to  freeze  applicants  out  of  the  White  House,  Cleveland  would 
kick  them  out,  while  McKinley  kissed  them  out. 

Indeed  I  had  much  the  same  impression  of  these  three  presi- 
dents. General  Harrison,  a  man  of  personal  rectitude  and  high 
character  was  reserved  and  cold  to  all  except  his  close  personal 
friends  and  even  with  these,  and  when  he  most  desired  to  be 
agreeable  he  was  not  always  genial. 

Cleveland  on  the  other  hand  in  the  single  interview  I  had 
with  him  gave  me  the  impression  of  a  man  of  rugged  frankness, 


128  MCKINLEY'S  ADMINISTRATION 

He  seemed  coarse-grained  and  almost  brutal  in  his  treatment 
of  those  who  displeased  him.  I  remember  that  the  man  upon 
the  line  ahead  of  me  was  a  federal  territorial  judge  who  was 
endeavoring  to  explain  to  the  President  some  matters  for 
which  he  had  been  criticized.  But  the  scoring  he  got  for  his 
conduct  in  the  presence  of  a  large  mmiber  of  persons  would  be 
enough  to  discourage  anyone  else  from  attempting  explana- 
tions.    Cleveland  simply  trampled  upon  him. 

Mr.  McKinley  on  the  other  hand  had  a  most  insinuating  and 
winning  way,  indulging  occasionally  in  delicate  courtesies 
involving  a  rather  innocent  kind  of  subtle  flattery.  For  in- 
stance in  the  above  interview  he  asked  me  in  the  most  con- 
fidential manner  (although  I  was  almost  a  stranger  to  him) 
if  I  could  advise  him  of  a  suitable  person  to  appoint  as  Attorney- 
General  of  Porto  Rico  saying,  "If  this  were  in  our  own  coun- 
try I  would  have  no  difficulty,  there  are  many  men  who  would 
do,  but  we  must  take  a  great  deal  better  care  of  the  people  of 
Porto  Rico  than  of  ourselves." 

Mr.  McKinley  was  personally  on  good  terms  even  with  those 
who  criticized  him  most  severely.  Mr.  Bliss,  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  once  said  to  me,  "I  have  been  in  his  cabinet  now  a  long 
time  and  I  never  heard  him  speak  an  unkind  word  of  any 
human  being."  No  doubt  there  was  a  great  deal  of  policy 
in  this.  He  was  a  consummate  manager  of  men  but  beneath 
all  that  there  could  be  no  doubt  there  was  a  genuine  kindness 
of  heart. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  NEW  INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE 

However  divergent  were  the  views  of  the  members  of  otir 
League  in  regard  to  Mr.  McKinley  we  were  all  united  upon  one 
thing  and  that  was  upon  the  necessity  of  keeping  a  close  watch 
upon  all  that  was  done  and  of  criticizing  with  impartiality 
any  proved  shortcomings  of  the  administration.  Another 
investigating  committee  was  appointed.  I  was  made  chair- 
man and,  in  April,  1901, 1  went  to  Washington  and  began  work 
upon  a  series  of  investigations  which  resulted  in  nine  reports 
to  the  Council  of  the  League,  which  were  extensively  published 
by  the  press  of  the  country. 

INDIAN  AGENTS 

The  first  of  these,  issued  on  May  5,  1901,  was  on  the  subject 
of  Indian  Agents.  Few  political  appointments  had  given  rise 
to  greater  scandals.  The  agents  were  generally  selected  by 
the  Senators  from  the  States  in  which  the  agencies  were  re- 
spectively situated  and  for  the  personal  or  political  advant- 
age of  these  Senators. 

During  Cleveland's  first  administration  in  sixty  agencies  all 
the  agents  were  changed  but  two.  Under  Harrison  there  were 
seventy-six  changes  and  only  eight  agents  were  allowed  to  serve 
out  their  terms;  in  Cleveland's  second  administration  there 
were  eighty-one  changes  and  only  four  served  out  their  terms ; 
under  McKinley  among  fifty-eight  agencies  there  were  seventy- 
nine  changes,  only  nine  were  permitted  to  serve  out  their 
terms  and  only  one  was  reappointed. 

We  believed  that  nothing  could  be  more  unfortunate  for  the 
9  129 


130     THE  NEW  INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE 

Indians  since  no  plans  for  tribal  improvement  could  be  effective 
when  they  were  stopped  almost  at  the  beginning  by  changing 
the  agents.  The  men  appointed  were  mostly  improper  selec- 
tions. The  Indians  were  despoiled  by  fraudulent  contracts 
and  their  morals  corrupted  by  drunken,  brutal,  licentious,  and 
dishonest  caretakers.  We  gave  many  instances  supported  by 
affidavits  showing  all  kinds  of  corruption  and  debauchery. 
We  insisted  that  whatever  temporary  improvement  might  be 
made  by  changes  in  the  personnel,  no  lasting  reform  could  be 
inaugurated  without  a  change  in  the  system  and  we  recom- 
mended that  all  appointments  should  be  made  by  promotion 
from  superintendents  of  Indian  schools,  from  higher  grades 
of  the  classified  Indian  service,  and  by  details  from  the 
army. 

I  communicated  this  to  the  President  on  April  26th,  in  a 
letter  containing  the  exhibits  and  evidence  upon  which  our 
report  was  founded.  He  made  some  improvement  in  the 
personnel  of  the  service  but  the  system  remained  unaltered. 
This  reform  had  to  await  the  advent  of  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

THE  HICKS  CASE 

Our  second  report  was  upon  the  violations  of  the  civil  service 
law  by  Postmaster  Thomas  L.  Hicks  of  the  Philadelphia  post 
office.  As  early  as  January,  1898,  a  committee  of  the  League 
had  sent  to  the  President  a  report  showing  a  ntunber  of  such 
violations  but  no  action  was  taken  and  Mr.  Hicks,  emboldened 
by  the  impunity  he  enjoyed,  continued  to  ignore  the  law  until 
near  the  close  of  1900  when  other  irregularities  came  to  our 
knowledge. 

On  the  22d  of  January,  1901,  Mr.  Dana  and  myself  represent- 
ing the  investigating  committee,  went  to  Philadelphia  and  in 
conjunction  with  Mr.  Francis  R.  Wood,  of  the  Philadelphia  As- 
sociation, we  visited  the  post  office  and  interviewed  the  post- 
master. Mr.  Hicks  made  statements  to  us  and  showed  us 
doctunents  indicating  many  clear  violations  of  the  law. 

The  rules  forbade  laborers  to  be  employed  on  duties  of 
classified  employees  but  the  Philadelphia  post  office  had  a  large 


THE  HICKS  CASE  131 

niimber  of  such  laborers  appointed  without  examination  and 
doing  service  as  bookkeepers  and  clerks. 

Postmasters  were  required  to  abstain  from  partisan  activity 
but  Mr.  Hicks  admitted  to  us  that  he  always  took  an  active 
part  in  politics  and  preferred  to  appoint  those  nearest  to  him 
politically.  He  called  meetings  of  carriers  for  political  pur- 
poses and  in  his  addresses  at  these  meetings  and  elsewhere  he 
spoke  in  favor  of  the  repeal  of  the  civil  service  law  and  de- 
clared that  none  but  Republicans  ought  to  be  appointed. 

The  law  forbade  coercing  employees  in  political  matters  yet 
we  had  written  statements  from  men  who  had  been  directly 
asked  by  the  postmaster  to  take  part  in  a  political  contest  for 
State  Senator  and  one  of  these  had  been  discharged  for  refusing 
to  do  so. 

By  the  rules  no  classified  employees  could  be  discharged 
except  for  cause  on  written  charges  nor  could  they  be  removed 
for  political  reasons  yet  thirteen  Democrats,  superintendents 
of  stations,  were  displaced  and  given  lower  positions  without 
any  charges  against  them  and  twelve  Republicans  and  one 
Democrat  put  in  their  places.  Some  of  the  superintendents 
thus  reduced  were  then  put  at  work  which  they  could  not  per- 
form and  were  thus  crowded  out  of  the  service. 

It  was  forbidden  by  law  to  require  that  a  siurety  bond  should 
be  made  by  any  particular  company,  yet  Mr.  Hicks  told  us 
that  he  would  take  no  bonds  from  his  appointees  but  those  of 
the  National  Surety  Company  with  which  he  admitted  he  had 
a  special  arrangement,  the  nature  of  which  he  declined  to  state. 

The  law  and  rules  governed  dismissals  and  transfers  yet  men 
appointed  to  take  charge  of  sub-stations  by  Mr.  Hicks  had  to 
sign  a  written  agreement  that  their  appointments  were  tem- 
porary and  that  he  could  transfer  or  dismiss  them  at  his 
pleasure. 

The  law  authorized  the  Civil  Service  Commission  to  make  an 
investigation  of  his  ofiice,  yet  when  its  secretary,  Mr.  Doyle, 
who  was  lawfully  detailed  by  that  body,  came  to  the  Phila- 
delphia post  office  for  this  purpose,  Mr.  Hicks  refused  to  permit 
inquiries  and  instructed  his  subordinates  to  give  Mr.  Doyle  no 
information. 


132     THE  NEW  INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE 

The  law  forbade  admissions  to  the  classified  service  without 
examination,  yet  Hicks  in  conjunction  with  Perry  Heath, 
First  Assistant  Postmaster-General,  fraudulently  nullified  this 
prohibition  by  sending  persons  whose  appointments  they 
desired  to  small  post  offices  which  were  about  to  become 
classified.  As  soon  as  these  offices  were  brought  within  the 
competitive  system,  the  appointees,  who  had  now  become  clas- 
sified, were  transferred  back  to  the  Philadelphia  office.  A 
sister  of  the  postmaster  was  thus  admitted  to  the  service. 

In  April,  1901,  our  committee  had  an  interview  with  the 
President  and  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  were 
many  violations  of  the  Civil  Service  Act  which  had  not  been 
punished  and  we  urged  upon  him  the  necessity  of  making  an 
example  of  the  delinquents.  He  asked  us  to  bring  to  his  notice 
some  clear  cases.  Accordingly  I  wrote  to  him  calling  his  atten- 
tion to  this  variegated  assortment  of  breaches  of  the  law,  giving 
the  names  and  the  circiunstances  attending  each  and  conclud- 
ing as  follows: 

Will  you  permit  me  to  suggest  that  if  such  things  are  permitted  to  go 
unpunished,  it  will  be  construed  as  notice  to  the  world  that  there  is  to  be 
no  enforcement  of  the  Civil  Service  Act.  It  has  been  suggested  that  Mr. 
Hicks  should  be  permitted  to  remain  in  office  until  the  close  of  his  term 
(which  is  soon  to  expire)  and  then  be  succeeded  by  someone  else,  but  such  a 
course  would  manifestly  fail  in  producing  the  wholesome  effect  of  making 
an  example  of  a  flagrant  violator  of  the  law  and  would  seem  itself  to  be  a 
violation  of  the  rule  which  requires  that  such  a  man  should  be  dismissed 
from  office.  .  .  .  May  we  not  hope  that  an  example  will  be  made  of  a 
man  who  has  been  guilty  of  a  greater  variety  of  violations  of  the  law  than 
any  other  case  which  has  come  to  my  knowledge. 

On  the  same  day  I  sent  a  copy  of  the  letter  to  the  Postmaster- 
General.  No  action  having  been  taken,  our  Investigating 
Committee  on  May  13th,  made  and  published  its  report  to  the 
League.' 

The  conclusion  of  this  case  was  what  might  have  been  ex- 
pected from  a  President  of  the  temperament  of  Mr.  McKinley. 

'The  Postmaster-General,  Mr.  Charles  Emory  Smith  of  Philadelphia  a 
political  friend  of  Mr.  Hicks,  published  on  June  17th  an  attempted  exoner- 
ation of  the  Postmaster  but  it  was  far  from  convincing.  I  answered  with  a 
letter  giving  a  detailed  analysis  of  the  evidence  and  the  law. 


THE  SAPP  CASE  133 

In  spite  of  our  convincing  array  of  facts,  Postmaster  Hicks 
was  not  dismissed  until  Roosevelt  became  President. 

LLEGAL  EMPLOYMENT  OF  LABORERS 

Our  third  report,  published  on  May  20,  1901,  dealt  generally 
with  the  question  of  the  employment  of  laborers  for  the  pur- 
pose of  assigning  them  illegally  to  clerical  duties.  We  showed 
that  in  three  years,  from  June,  1896  to  June,  1899,  the  labor 
force  of  the  departments  had  increased  more  than  50  per  cent 
owing  not  merely  to  the  natural  growth  of  the  service  but  also 
to  the  fact  that  laborers  were  employed  to  perform  the  duties 
of  classified  employees. 

These  cases  had  become  so  numerous  that  there  was  danger 
that  the  competitive  system  would  be  seriously  undermined  by 
them. 

We  recommended  for  the  correction  of  this  evil  the  establish- 
ment of  a  labor  registration  system  such  as  had  already  been 
created  in  the  Navy  Department.  This  would  eliminate 
politics  and  personal  favor.  Indeed  it  was  only  a  short  time 
after  our  report  was  published  that  such  a  registration  system 
was  adopted  in  the  War  Department  and  a  substantial  im- 
provement made. 

THE   SAPP  CASE 

The  fourth  report  of  our  committee  issued  on  May  27,  1901, 
related  to  the  violations  of  the  civil  service  law  in  the  Internal 
Revenue  service  in  Kentucky  under  C.  E.  Sapp.  This  was 
one  of  the  most  picturesque  cases  of  the  management  of  a 
government  office  under  the  spoils  system  which  ever  came  to 
my  knowledge.  In  1899  Mr.  Sapp  issued  to  one  Joseph 
Potoning  a  written  authority  to  collect  campaign  assessments 
as  follows: 

Knowing  your  zeal  in  such  matters  and  the  campaign  funds  being  low  and 
being  very  desirous  of  nominating  Attorney- General  Taylor  for  governor, 
I  respectfully  appoint  you  a  collector  and  hope  you  will  push  the  matter 
and  do  everything  you  can  for  us. 

Respectfully, 

Charles  E.  Sapp. 


134     THE  NEW  INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE 

Potoning  accordingly  levied  an  assessment  of  five  per  cent  on 
the  salary  of  each  of  the  employees,  payable  monthly  and  he  de- 
manded payment  both  by  letter  and  in  person  and  often  in  the 
building  occupied  for  official  duties,  which  the  law  prohibited. 
He  made  monthly  reports  to  Sapp  as  to  the  employees  who  had 
or  had  not  paid,  and  upon  these  reports  the  assignments  to 
duty  of  these  employees  as  store-keepers,  gaugers,  etc.  were 
made  and  their  pay  was  regulated  accordingly.  Those  who 
contributed  were  given  good  appointments  and  those  who 
failed,  poor  assignments,  and  some  were  laid  off  and  dismissed. 

The  collector  compelled  his  employees  to  stay  away  from  the 
meeting  of  the  "Hambrick"  faction,  to  which  he  was  opposed, 
by  standing  at  the  entrance  of  the  building  where  they  as- 
sembled and  warning  them  not  to  go  in.  He  required  them 
to  attend  the  meetings  of  the  Davis  faction  to  which  he 
belonged. 

By  means  of  his  official  authority  he  controlled  the  Repub- 
lican primaries  of  Louisville  held  June  lo,  1899,  to  elect  dele- 
gates to  the  State  Convention. 

In  the  fifth  ward  he  caused  J.  J.  Bryan,  one  of  his  gaugers,  to 
be  made  chairman  and  directed  him  to  call  the  meeting  to  order 
by  solar  time,  eighteen  minutes  faster  than  standard  time  by 
which  all  business  in  Louisville  was  transacted.  The  Internal 
Revenue  men  went  into  the  hall,  locked  the  doors,  appointed 
the  delegates  to  the  State  Convention  and  filed  out  five  minutes 
before  i  o'clock,  the  hour  set  for  the  meeting  standard  time. 
Then  the  opposition  numbering  over  200  gained  admission  but 
the  District  Convention  held  that  the  delegates  appointed  by 
the  earlier  convention  were  elected. 

In  other  wards  similar  transactions  occiirred.  Two  deposi- 
tions, that  of  William  Holboum,  attorney,  and  that  of  John 
Gimbel,  -cigarmaker,  threw  interesting  side  lights  upon  the 
statesmanship  of  the  collector.  One  presented  an  inside  and 
the  other  an  outside  view  of  the  situation. 

Mr.  Holbourn  stated  that  he  went  to  the  meeting  in  the  1 2th 
ward  at  half-past  12  o'clock.  When  he  got  there  he  found  six- 
teen men  congregated  together.  There  were  seven  others  who 
came  in  afterwards  making  twenty-three  in  all  when  the  doors 


THE  SAPP  CASE  135 

were  closed  and  locked.     The  men  inside  were  principally 
officeholders. 

The  convention  was  called  to  order  at  a  quarter  of  one,  city  time,  and 
was  over  before  i  o'clock.  They  went  through  a  kind  of  "service"  that 
they  had,  of  nominating  delegates  to  serve  in  the  coming  convention.  .  .  . 
After  it  was  all  over  we  came  out  and  went  into  the  other  room  and  found 
about  200  of  the  12th  ward  people  massed* there  waiting  for  the  convention 
to  be  called  to  order.    .    .    . 

Mr.  Gimbel  testifies  concerning  a  ward  meeting  at  307  East 
Market  Street.  The  time  appointed  was  i  o'clock.  He  ar- 
rived about  12.30  and  waited  near  the  building  till  fifteen 
minutes  before  one,  when  the  doors  were  closed.  After  this 
three  employees  of  the  Internal  Revenue  Service,  with  about 
ten  other  men  went  around  the  corner  of  the  block  and  through 
the  yard  of  a  person  residing  on  Shelby  Street  and  jumped  the 
fence  back  of  said  yard.  In  less  than  five  minutes  they  came 
out  again  and  announced  the  names  of  the  delegates  to  a  re- 
porter. 

By  such  simple  methods  a  majority  of  the  ward  conventions 
were  "carried"  by  government  employees,  acting  under  col- 
lector Sapp.  And  when  the  Republican  Convention  met  at 
Lexington,  on  July  12th,  over  sixty  of  these  employees  (in- 
cluding the  collector,  the  chief  deputy,  the  assignment 
clerk,  etc.)  composed  about  one  third  of  the  entire  delegation 
from  the  county,  and  Attorney-General  Taylor  (the  candidate 
mentioned  in  Sapp's  letter  to  Potoning)  was  "enthusiastically  " 
nominated  for  the  Governorship. 

The  Civil  Service  Commission  investigated  these  facts  and 
sent  an  account  of  them  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  to 
the  President,  and  to  the  Department  of  Justice.  A  year 
elapsed.  The  papers  had  been  forwarded  to  the  District 
Attorney  at  Louisville  and  were  now  submitted  to  the  Federal 
Grand  Jury  but  the  jury  ignored  the  charges.  In  Apnl,  1901, 
I  called  the  facts  to  the  attention  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue,  and  later  of  the 
President  himself.  Nearly  a  month  elapsed  and  nothing  was 
done.  Then  our  committee  gave  its  report  to  the  public 
concluding  with  the  following  remarks : 


136     THE  NEW  INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  political  results  of  the  lawless  policy 
adopted  by  the  collector  in  levying  assessments  and  packing  primaries  for 
the  purpose  of  securing  a  "Taylor"  delegation  in  the  State  Convention. 
Taylor,  who  was  nominated  to  the  governorship  by  such  means,  is  now  a 
fugitive  from  justice,  indicted  for  complicity  in  murder,  while  the  Repub- 
lican majority  in  the  Fifth  Congressional  District  (in  which  these  transac- 
tions occurred)  was  reduced  from  12,500  in  1896  to  3700  in  1900.  Your 
committee  is  personally  assured  by  men  of  standing  and  responsibility  in 
that  community  that  this  difference  of  over  8000  votes  is  largely  due  to 
general  indignation  at  the  political  methods  of  collector  Sapp. 

Still  Sapp  remained  in  office.  In  October,  1901,  the  Com- 
mission made  a  further  investigation  and  on  November  7th, 
transmitted  to  the  President  a  report  showing  that  the  col- 
lector still  continued  to  violate  the  law.  By  this  time  Mr. 
Roosevelt  was  President  and  results  were  soon  apparent. 
Collector  Sapp,  on  November  nth,  resigned  his  office. 

THE  EL  PASO  CASE 

On  June  3,  1901 ,  our  Investigating  Committee  published 
a  report  on  the  flagrant  violations  of  the  law  at  the  El  Paso 
Custom  House.  In  July,  1908,  a  competitive  examination  was 
held  for  places  in  this  office  and  Moses  Dillon,  the  collector, 
told  W.  S.  Holmes,  a  member  of  the  local  civil  service  examin- 
ing board,  that  there  were  four  applicants.  Fink,  Bloom,  Mc- 
Dougal,  and  the  collector's  son,  whom  the  collector  desired 
should  pass  this  examination.  Holmes  was  ordered  to  com- 
municate this  to  Race,  the  secretary  of  the  board,  and  tell  him 
it  would  not  be  wise  for  him  to  refuse.  Race  accordingly  gave 
Holmes  copies  of  the  questions,  Holmes  brought  them  to  Bloom 
and  Fink,  two  of  the  candidates,  who  studied  them  and  were 
examined  and  appointed. 

The  collector  also  received  contributions  for  political  pur- 
poses in  his  office  at  the  federal  building  from  inspectors  and 
other  federal  employees.  This  case,  with  the  testimony  of  the 
witnesses,  was  laid  before  the  Department  of  Justice  but  by 
this  time  the  witness  Holmes  was  dead  and  others  refused  to 
testify  because  the  evidence  would  incriminate  themselves  so 
no  indictment  was  found. 


EMPLOYEES  OF  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES    137 

On  the  morning  of  April  18, 1901, 1  submitted  the  foregoing 
facts  to  Mr.  Gage,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  told  me  that 
as  the  office  of  collector  was  a  presidential  office,  complaint 
should  be  made  to  the  President.  Two  days  later  I  com- 
municated these  matters  in  writing  to  the  President  but  when 
six  weeks  elapsed  and  nothing  was  done  our  committee  gave 
its  report  to  the  public. 

Still  no  action  was  taken  until  after  Mr.  Roosevelt  became 
President.  Then  on  November  4,  1901 ,  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission submitted  to  him  papers  showing  the  charges  and  the 
facts  and  the  collector  was  removed  from  office. 

CENSUS  FRAUDS  IN  MARYLAND 

Our  next  report  of  the  frauds  in  the  taking  of  the  Federal 
Census  in  Maryland  has  been  already  referred  to  in  a  preceding 
chapter. 

EMPLOYEES  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 

In  July  we  issued  a  report  on  the  abuses  in  the  appointments 
of  subordinate  officers  and  employees  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, which  was  a  review  of  an  investigation  made  by 
a  special  committee  of  the  House,  known  as  the  Moody 
Committee  on  the  28th  of  February. 

The  civil  service  law  did  not  apply  to  these  positions,  hence 
we  had  an  opportunity  to  set  forth  the  charms  of  the  spoils 
system  in  a  place  where  it  was  permitted  to  bloom  and  bear 
fruit  unrestrained  by  inconvenient  rules  requiring  competitive 
examinations.  While  subordinates  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives were  nominally  appointed  by  the  clerk,  door- 
keeper, etc.,  the  places  were  really  apportioned  as  patronage 
among  various  members  of  Congress,  mostly  those  belonging 
to  the  party  in  power.  Persons  appointed  to  perform  certain 
work  were  assigned  to  occupations  entirely  different.  Thus 
the  House  telegrapher  worked  in  the  stationery  room,  while 
the  man  who  actually  performed  the  work  of  telegrapher  was 
paid  from  an  appropriation  of  $900  for  the  "hire  of  horses  and 
wagons  and  cartage  for  use  of  clerk's  office. "    Meanwhile  the 


138      THE  NEW  INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE 

man  who  received  $1200  as  telegrapher  spent  his  time  in  the 
Hbrary  compiling  biographies  of  the  members  of  Congress,  a 
"leisurely  place"  where  "you  didn't  have  to  perspire  a  great 
deal, "  though  $400  additional  appropriation  was  recommended 
by  the  clerk  in  evident  appreciation  of  the  statesmanship 
recorded  in  these  biographies.  One  of  the  pages  "who  could 
not  read  and  write"  was  put  to  driving  a  team  and  the  man 
employed  as  driver  cleaned  the  floors  and  scrubbed  the  spit- 
toons. The  locksmith  served  as  a  messenger  and  though  he 
was  absent  from  April  until  after  the  Christmas  holidays,  he 
received  $1440  a  year. 

The  librarian  and  his  subordinates  were  also  absent  for  long 
periods  and  the  library,  consisting  of  some  300,000  volumes 
was  scattered  from  dome  to  basement  with  piles  of  books  in 
unused  rooms  until  the  librarian  himself  testified  that  it  would 
be  all  right  for  a  barnyard  but  for  books  it  was  terrible. 

One  Smith,  who  was  pretty  fond  of  " old  barleycorn"  got  an 
appropriation  of  $600  for  *  *  loafing  about. ' '  He  had  a  good  run 
of  the  books  which  were  in  the  rubbish  pile  and  knew  to  what 
part  of  the  pile  to  go  to  for  certain  volumes.  The  business  of 
keeping  this  rubbish  pile  was  farmed  out  by  other  employees 
to  this  man. 

The  folders  were  absent  a  great  deal  and  others  were 
employed  and  paid  to  do  their  work. 

The  door-keeper  testified,  "I  do  not  like  to  criticize  mem- 
bers, but  that  is  the  situation.  They  go  and  say,  *  I  have  got 
to  have  my  man  home*  and  he  must  go  home." 

The  door-keeper  was  further  asked:  "Have  there  been  any 
other  cases  of  absenteeism  except  among  the  folders?"  To  which 
he  replied,  "  No,  except  those  who  naturally  go. "  Of  this  our 
committee  observed:  "It  would  appear  that  these  two  classes, 
those  who  naturally  go  and  those  who  go  through  the  artificial 
assistance  of  Congressmen  form  a  pretty  large  aggregate." 

There  were  dozens  who  were  paid  when  they  were  not  there 
at  all.  One  of  the  employees  in  the  cloakroom  was  there  on 
and  off  for  only  three  or  four  months  during  a  period  of  three 
years  and  he  was  spared  from  going  to  Waishington  even  to 
receive  his  salary.     The  vouchers  were  sent  to  him  and  he 


EMPLOYEES  OF  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES   139 

filed  receipts  in  the  disbursing  clerk's  office  "just  as  all  the 
other  gentlemen  who  go  home  do. " 

The  disbursing  officer  testified:  **  It  is  no  question  for  me  to 
find  out  whether  they  are  there  or  not. " 

The  office  which  kept  such  admirable  check  upon  expendi- 
tures itself  cost  about  $14,000  a  year. 

This  system  had  existed  for  many  years  and  it  was  evident 
that  places  in  the  service  of  the  House  were  considered  not  as 
positions  where  there  were  duties  to  be  performed,  but  as  sine- 
cures for  which  money  was  appropriated  or  as  plunder  to  be 
divided,  and  in  the  minds  of  our  committee  the  sinister  question 
arose  whether  honest  legislation  could  be  expected  from 
Congressmen  thus  guilty  in  withdrawing  from  the  Treasury 
these  numerous  small  stuns  for  the  objects  of  their  patronage. 
Was  public  virtue  in  larger  matters  possible  in  a  body  where 
such  peculation  was  an  established  institution? 

More  places  had  been  promised  than  the  officers  of  the 
House  were  able  to  discover.  So  those  who  were  appointed 
contributed  to  pay  people  not  on  the  roll. 

The  barbers  in  the  Republican  cloakroom  were  each  assessed 
$10.00  a  month  to  pay  one  in  the  Democratic  cloakroom  who 
had  no  place  and  had  to  be  carried.  "A  gentleman  on  the 
Democratic  side  suggested  taking  care  of  him  in  that  way." 

Two  colored  men  employed  as  laborers  in  the  House  bath- 
rooms at  $720  a  year  had  each  to  give  two  months'  pay  to  a 
white  man  who  did  nothing.  Afterwards  they  had  to  give 
$10.00  a  month  to  a  colored  man  and  sent  it  to  him  by 
registered  letters  for  eight  months.  They  said  this  was 
done  by  order  of  the  Clerk  of  the  House,  which,  however, 
he  denied. 

The  reading  clerk  was  carried  on  the  rolls  at  a  salary  of 
$3600.  He  turned  over  this  salary  to  the  disbursing  clerk  who 
returned  him  $2000  for  himself,  gave  $1200  to  one  man  and 
$400  to  another.  This  $400  was  actually  paid  to  one  of  the 
Congressmen  who  sent  it  to  his  prot^g^.  Not  only  was  there 
no  record  of  these  transactions  but  the  employee  was  often 
deprived  of  his  memory  concerning  them.  The  clerk  of  the 
House  thus  described  how  things  of  this  sort  were  done: 


140     THE  NEW  INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE 

Salaries  have  been  divided  for  years,  and  it  is  generally  caused  by  the 
Members;  you  understand  that.  For  instance,  two  men  draw  two  posi- 
tions. One  is  $1200  and  the  other  $800.  They  both  want  the  $1200 
position;  and  they  compromise  by  one  taking  the  $800  position  and  the 
other  the  $1200  and  they  figure  8  and  12  is  20,  one  half  of  20  is  10.  This  is 
a  matter  which  they  figure  among  themselves. 

Enormous  salaries  were  paid  for  trifling  work — $2000  a  year 
for  a  newspaper  clerk  who  had  charge  of  the  subscription  lists 
and  files,  and  $1314  for  the  man  who  brought  up  the  news- 
papers and  put  them  on  the  files. 

The  House  carpenter  designated  his  own  work,  and  made 
out  his  own  bills,  which  were  paid  without  auditing  or  super- 
vising.   There  was  one  bill  of  $3218  for  packing  boxes  alone. 

The  report  of  the  Congressional  Committee  which  inves- 
tigated these  abuses  did  not  give  the  names  of  the  members  who 
caused  them. 

Our  Committee  after  describing  all  these  things  remarked: 
"The  entire  force  consisted  of  357  persons.  If  such  abuses 
could  exist  in  a  force  of  that  size  what  would  be  the  effect  of 
restoring  the  patronage  system  in  the  eighty-five  thousand 
places  now  subject  to  competitive  examination?" 

EVASIONS  THROUGH  SPECIAL  LEGISLATION 

On  July  29th  our  Committee  published  a  report  on  the 
evasions  of  the  civil  service  law  through  constructions  placed 
on  special  legislation.  We  showed  that  although  the  rules 
applied  to  all  new  positions  as  soon  as  these  were  created 
except  where  Congress  expressly  provided  otherwise,  yet  in  a 
great  number  of  cases  some  ambiguity  in  the  language  of  the 
bills  had  been  improperly  construed  by  appointing  officers  so 
as  to  exclude  these  positions  from  the  competitive  service. 
Thus  the  number  of  exceptions  kept  constantly  growing  and 
the  civil  service  law  was  circumvented. 

For  instance  appointments  to  the  Rural  Free  Delivery 
service  were  made  without  examination  for  the  ridiculous 
reason  that  that  service  was  spoken  of  as  "experimental"  and 
this  was  continued  long  after  it  ceased  to  be  experimental  at 
all. 


JERSEY  CITY  POST  OFFICE  141 

The  act  appropriating  money  for  the  Forest  Reserve  Bureau 
provided  that  the  employees  should  be  appointed  "wholly  with 
reference  to  their  fitness  and  without  regard  to  their  political 
affiliations."  This  language  did  not  interfere  with  appoint- 
ments tmder  the  civil  service  law  but  rather  the  reverse.  Yet 
the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  claimed  the  rules  did  not  apply,  a 
letter  from  the  Civil  Service  Commission  contesting  this  view 
remained  unanswered,  and  the  Bureau  was  treated  as  un- 
classified. 

Certain  temporary  clerks  in  the  office  of  the  First  Assistant 
Postmaster-General  were  also  appointed  without  reference 
to  the  civil  service  rules,  though  these  rules  made  special 
provision  for  temporary  appointments.  Copyists  in  the 
General  Land  Office  were  similarly  appointed  because  the 
work  was  said  to  be  of  an  "emergency"  character;  temporary 
stenographers  and  typewriters  in  the  Department  of  State 
on  the  ground  that  the  word  used  was  "select"  and  not 
"appoint,"  etc.  We  insisted  that  if  the  practice  of  securing 
exceptions  by  such  methods  should  not  be  checked  the  Civil 
Service  Act  would  be  gradually  nullified  and  we  called  upon 
the  President  to  classify  these  places  and  put  a  stop  to  these 
practices.  But  no  action  as  taken  until  Mr.  Roosevelt 
became  President. 


JERSEY  CITY  POST  OFFICE 

On  August  12,  1 90 1,  we  issued  a  report  concerning  the  vio- 
lations of  the  law  in  the  Jersey  City  post  office.  E.  W. 
Woolley,  Assistant  Postmaster,  was  president  of  the  Hudson 
County  Republican  Committee  and  the  Jersey  City  Republi- 
can Committee  which  sent  to  the  carriers  letters  requesting 
contributions  to  meet  campaign  expenses  both  for  local  and 
national  campaigns. 

In  addition  to  this  it  was  shown  that  Mr.  Woolley  together 
with  Superintendent  of  Carriers  Bertsch  had  coerced  employ- 
ees of  the  office  and  had  illegally  discriminated  against  those 
who  refused  to  contribute  by  changing  their  routes  and  giving 


142      THE  NEW  INVESTIGATING  COMMITTEE 

them  undesirable  vacations  in  the  winter  time  while  those  who 
contributed  avoided  trouble. 

In  making  these  assessments  a  curious  method  was  adopted 
to  avoid  direct  personal  solicitation.  There  was  a  box  placed 
on  a  little  table  in  front  of  the  time-keeper's  desk  in  such  a 
position  that  when  the  carriers  came  up  to  report  they  could 
not  fail  to  see  it.  This  box  contained  a  rabbit's  foot  and  had 
an  official  envelope  with  the  corner  of  a  $10.00  bill  sticking  out. 
Other  envelopes  had  on  them  the  names  of  the  carriers  from 
whom  contributions  were  desired.  When  asked  the  meaning 
of  this  one  of  them  testified,  "The  rabbit's  foot  meant  good 
luck,  that  those  who  paid  Sio.oo  would  be  in  good  luck." 

The  claim  was  also  made  that  the  vacations  had  been  drawn 
by  lot  although  the  carriers  were  not  permitted  to  he  present 
when  this  was  done.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  these  undesirable 
vacations  uniformly  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  non-contributors  I 
observed  to  the  Postmaster-General  that  in  this  case  we  had  a 
remarkable  illustration  of  the  direct  interposition  of  Provi- 
dence in  favor  of  campaign  contributors  for  Hudson  County 
elections. 

I  called  the  attention  of  the  Postmaster-General  and  the 
President  to  these  facts.  The  case  was  submitted  by  the 
Civil  Service  Commission  to  the  Attorney-General,  who  de- 
clined to  prosecute,  and  accordingly  in  August  our  committee 
published  these  matters,  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
ofiEenders  still  remained  in  office  and  had  actually  repeated 
their  political  assessments  in  open  defiance  of  law. 

A  curious  thing  occurred  while  we  were  publishing  this 
series  of  reports.  President  McKinley,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
we  were  criticizing  his  administration  so  severely,  told  me  in 
one  of  my  interviews  with  him  that  he  was  not  satisfied  with 
all  the  members  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  and  that  he 
desired  to  appoint  me  as  one  of  the  Commissioners.  I  was  at 
first  inclined  to  wonder  whether  this  was  not  merely  one  of  his 
compliments  till  I  heard  he  had  also  spoken  to  others  of 
appointing  me.  There  had  been  so  many  things  however 
which  he  had  expressed  his  intention  of  doing  in  regard  to  the 
civil  service  which  had  not  been  done  that  I  did  not  give  the 
matter  serious  consideration.    I  am  inclined  to  think  that  his 


JERSEY  CITY  POST  OFFICE  143 

idea  was  that  in  appointing  one  of  the  most  active  of  his 
critics  to  an  administrative  position  he  would  disarm  much  of 
the  criticism  and  perhaps  satisfy  those  who  were  making  it 
how  difficult  it  was  to  enforce  the  law  against  strong  political 
pressure. 

Our  investigating  committee  had  prepared  the  drafts  of 
two  more  reports,  one  of  the  Internal  Revenue  service  and 
one  on  the  appointments  under  the  War  Emergency  Acts. 
These  were  to  be  submitted  to  the  President  on  his  return  to 
Washington  in  the  fall. 

We  had  also  collected  a  mass  of  information  relative  to  the 
results  of  his  unfortunate  order  of  May,  1899,  as  to  the  work 
of  the  Census  and  other  matters  when  suddenly  the  tragedy 
at  Buffalo  and  the  accession  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  the  presi- 
dency completely  changed  the  aspect  of  affairs.  * 

^  The  preparation  of  these  reports  and  the  collection  of  this  information 
were  mainly  the  work  of  Mr.  George  McAneny  who  had  been  secretary  of 
the  League  since  1894  ^^^  had  conducted  its  affairs  with  signal  ability  up 
to  1902  when  he  was  called  to  other  duties,  becoming  executive  officer 
of  the  New  York  Municipal  Civil  Service  Commission  under  Mayor  Low, 
then  president  of  the  Borough  of  Manhattan,  afterwards  president  of  the 
Board  of  Aldermen,  and  at  one  time  acting  Mayor  of  New  York.  He  was 
ably  seconded  in  his  work  for  the  League  by  his  assistant  Elliot  H.  Goodwin 
who  succeeded  him  as  secretary  upon  his  retirement  in  1902  and  continued 
as  the  executive  officer  of  the  League  until  19 12  when  he  became  general 
secretary  of  the  United  States  Chamber  of  Commerce.  A  great  part  of  the 
material  in  our  work  of  investigation  was  prepared  and  arranged  by  the 
assiduous  labors  of  these  two  men  and  the  whole  was  greatly  improved  by 
their  revision.  There  were  no  men  connected  with  the  reform  movement 
whose  judgment  was  more  unerring.  The  League  has  been  specially 
fortunate  not  only  in  the  leadership  of  George  Wm.  Curtis,  Carl  Schurz, 
and  Dorman  B,  Eaton  but  in  having  at  its  command  perhaps  the  most 
efficient  men  in  the  country  in  conducting  its  propaganda,  in  marshaling 
the  facts  regarding  the  spoils  system,  and  in  devising  suitable  remedies  for 
abuses.  No  history  of  the  Civil  Service  movement  will  be  complete  which 
cannot  present  more  fully  than  I  am  able  to  do  in  these  pages  the  invaluable 
services  of  these  men  to  the  reform. 


CHAPTER  XI 
Roosevelt's  administration 

Roosevelt  was  the  antithesis  of  McKinley.  While  Mc- 
Kinley  administered  the  government  by  soft,  flexible,  diplo- 
matic measures,  moving  along  the  path  of  least  resistance 
and  seeking  to  be  friends  with  everyone,  yielding  to  pressure 
and  floating  on  the  currents  of  popular  opinion  rather  than 
directing  them,  Roosevelt  attained  his  objects  by  the  direct  est 
road,  bearing  down  obstacles  by  the  force  of  his  will.  He  had 
a  far  more  definite  knowledge  of  the  needs  of  the  civil  service 
than  had  McKinley.  His  six  years*  experience  as  Commis- 
sioner had  shown  him  clearly  that  little  could  be  done  by 
compromising  with  spoilsmen;  that  the  law  needed  to  be 
strictly  enforced. 

Early  in  October  I  had  an  interview  with  him  regarding 
such  enforcement  and  the  extension  of  the  classified  lists.  ^ 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  I  received  a  telegram  from 

*  In  this  interview  he  assured  me  that  he  intended  to: 

(i)  Remove  all  officers  charged  with  violations  of  the  law  who  were 
unable  to  present  an  adequate  defense  and  whose  cases  had  not  already 
been  adjudicated. 

(2)  To  restore  the  old  rule  limiting  reinstatements  to  one  year  except 
in  the  case  of  veterans. 

(3)  To  amend  the  rule  governing  temporary  appointments  so  as  to 
require  that  when  there  were  less  than  three  on  the  eligible  list  one  of  these 
should  be  given  the  temporary  appointment  until  the  examination  for 
permanent  appointment  should  be  held. 

(4)  To  amend  the  rules  so  that  Porto  Ricans  and  other  inhabitants  of 
insular  dependencies  could  be  examined. 

(5)  To  require  all  civil  employees  to  furnish  testimony  when  asked  by 
the  Civil  Service  Commission  under  penalty  of  dismissal. 

(6)  To  provide  that  when  any  person  was  appointed  without  com- 

144 


ROOSEVELTS  ADMINISTRATION  145 

him  asking  me  to  take  a  place  on  the  Civil  Service  Commission. 
He  had  indeed,  as  I  learned  afterwards,  spoken  of  this  matter 
to  some  of  his  friends  immediately  after  taking  the  oath  of 
office  at  Buffalo,  and  later  he  had  assured  himself  of  the 
approval  of  Senators  Fairbanks  and  Beveridge  from  my  own 
State.  The  offer  when  I  received  it  was  extremely  attractive 
to  me.  I  was  a  warm  friend  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  I  believed 
in  him  absolutely.  I  knew  well  his  interest  in  the  reform  and 
felt  sure  a  great  deal  of  effective  work  could  be  done  under  his 
administration.  The  offer  was  also  attractive  because  I  would 
be  associated  with  so  able  a  defender  of  the  reform  system  and 
so  charming  a  man  as  John  R.  Proctor,  the  president  of  the 
Commission. 

But  there  was  one  consideration  which  restrained  me  from 
an  immediate  acceptance.  I  was  to  be  appointed  in  place  of 
a  man  who  had  been  for  a  number  of  years  a  conscientious 
Commissioner  and  who  would  be  thrown  out  of  office  without 
support  in  his  old  age  if  I  were  to  take  the  place.  I  talked  with 
Mr.  Proctor  about  this  and  he  told  me  that  that  contingency 
had  already  been  provided  for,  that  he  had  s^n  the  President 
and  had  asked  him  to  make  some  other  provisioafor  this  man, 
since  he  doubted  whether  I  would  accept  the  place  if  this 
were  not  done.  Mr.  Roosevelt  answered  him  characteristi- 
cally: "Old  man,  do  you  know  the  thing  you  are  proposing  is 
distinctly  a  spoils  proposition!  I  would  be  making  a  place, 
not  for  the  benefit  of  the  service  but  to  provide  for  some  par- 
ticular man.  But  in  this  case,"  he  added,  "I  am  with  you, 
and  I  am  going  to  do  it."  A  place  of  some  consideration  was 
accordingly  provided  where  the  ex-commissioner  was  still 

pliance  with  the  civil  service  rules  auditing  and  disbursing  officers  should 
refuse  payment  of  the  salary  of  such  appointee.  He  said  that  at  a  later 
period  after  the  law  had  been  better  enforced,  he  would  consider  the  clas- 
sification of  the  Internal  Revenue  service,  the  registration  of  laborers,  and 
if  possible  the  classification  of  the  consular  service,  but  that  his  plans  might 
be  changed  to  meet  the  suggestions  of  his  Cabinet  or  in  case  any  legal  dif- 
ficulties should  intervene. 

I  reported  the  successful  result  of  my  interview  to  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  which  on  the  motion  of 
Mr.  Schurz  accepted  the  report  with  special  and  cordial  satisfaction. 


146  ROOSEVELVS  ADMINISTRATION 

able  to  do  effective  work.  And  I,  who  was  equally  regardless 
of  consistency,  as  soon  as  I  learned  of  this  decided  to  accept 
the  Commissionership. 

ON  THE  COMMISSION 

I  secured  a  very  tiny  but  attractive  house  on  New  Hamp- 
shire Avenue  where  I  lived  while  I  remained  in  Washington. 
On  the  15th  of  November  I  was  sworn  in.  The  Commission 
was  then  housed  in  a  rather  shabby  rented  building  opposite 
the  Post  Office  Department  and  here  it  was  that  I  began  to 
learn  the  details  of  the  work  and  cooperate  with  the  other 
Commissioners,  Messrs.  Proctor  and  Rodenberg,  in  the  work  of 
strengthening  and  extending  the  classified  system. 

Within  three  days  we  procured  from  the  President  an  order 
repealing  the  exemption  from  examination  of  a  large  number 
of  employees  in  various  departments  at  large  of  the  United 
States  army,  ten  days  subsequently  the  President  promulgated 
a  rule  providing  that  superintendents  of  Indian  schools  acting 
as  agents  might  be  classified,  also  a  rule  restricting  transfers, 
and  on  the  following  day,  November  27th,  the  classification 
of  the  free  delivery,  a  very  important  branch  of  the  service, 
was  authorized. 

It  was  not  long  after  I  began  my  duties  that  I  learned  some 
extraordinary  things.  I  found  for  instance,  that  much  of  the 
opposition  to  civil  service  reform  roared  loudly  and  thun- 
dered in  the  index,  but  yet  was  very  gentle  and  mild  at  heart. 
We  heard,  for  example,  a  cry  coming  up  from  the  departments 
with  singular  unanimity  to  the  Commission:  "Save  us  from 
the  office  seekers;  include  in  the  classified  service  anything  and 
everything  you  can;  we  don't  want  our  lives  worn  out  by  these 
interminable  applications;  but  for  heaven's  sake  don't  tell  the 
Congressmen  we  asked  you  to  do  this!"  I  found  that  the 
Commission  played  to  the  remaining  departments  and  bureaus 
of  the  government  very  much  the  same  part  that  Jorkins 
played  in  the  firm  of  Spenlow  &  Jorkins.  Spenlow  was  always 
accommodating,  but  it  was  Jorkins,  who  sat  in  an  unknown 
room  upstairs,  whom  nobody  saw — ^it  was  Jorkins  who  always 


ON  THE  COMMISSION  147 

fiercely  resisted  the  demands  for  every  concession.  So  it  was 
with  us.  Every  department  official  would  be  only  too  glad 
to  oblige,  but  for  that  infernal  Commission  which  blocked  the 
way  to  every  primrose  path  of  patronage.  It  perhaps  was 
fortunate  that  there  were  those  on  the  Commission  who  were 
quite  willing  to  be  Jorkins,  or  even  something  worse,  if  they 
could  thus  prevent  the  demoralization  of  the  service.  Some- 
times even  the  legislators  who  denounced  the  competitive 
system  and  the  Commission  upon  the  floor  of  Congress  would 
privately  tell  us  they  did  not  mean  half  they  said,  that  they 
really  were  glad  to  be  relieved  of  distributing  patronage,  but 
that  they  had  to  make  a  showing  to  the  office  seekers  among 
their  constituents. 

But  this  was  not  true  of  all,  and  where  a  Congressman  really 
wanted  to  secure  the  appointment  of  some  useful  dependent 
or  retainer,  or  the  relative  of  some  influential  constituent  who 
had  to  be  placated,  many  were  the  evasions  and  tricks  by 
which  he  sought  to  squeeze  his  proteg^  into  the  service  in  spite 
of  the  law.  How  many  * '  temporary  appointments ' '  he  used  to 
solicit  which  threatened  to  last  a  lifetime!  How  often  would 
he  try  to  have  his  friends  appointed  as  "mere  laborers"  and 
then  to  have  them  assigned  to  clerical  work  until  the  Com- 
missioners threatened  to  issue  a  new  edict,  "Scrub  or  get  out'** 
How  many  places  like  those  of  census  clerks  were  made  polit- 
ical patronage  because  they  were  merely  temporary,  and  then 
when  the  work  was  over  it  was  attempted  to  transfer  them 
bodily  into  the  classified  service  in  order  that  so  large  a  mul- 
titude should  not  be  cast  forth  into  a  cold  and  unfeeling 
world ! 

There  were  other  discoveries  made  by  the  new  Commis- 
sioner. I  found  a  curious  impression  prevailing,  that  we  were 
ourselves  the  general  distributors  of  patronage. 

Even  before  I  went  to  Washington  I  began  to  receive  letters 
from  various  persons,  known  and  unknown  to  me,  asking  for 
positions.  It  seemed  to  be  considered  that  I  was  to  be  a 
general  employment  agent  of  the  government.  This  fact 
gave  rise  to  a  practical  joke  upon  me  in  my  own  household. 
Among  my  letters  was  the  following,  mailed  to  me  at  Richmond : 


148  ROOSEVELTS  ADMINISTRATION 

Dear  Sir:  I  dislike  to  bother  you,  but  it  would  give  me  great  service 
by  seeing  if  there  would  be  any  place  in  Washington  where  I  could  give  my 
services.   I  can  manicure  nails  and  can  take  care  of  babies. 

I  thought  I  would  preserve  the  letter  and  lay  it  before  the  other 
members  of  the  Commission  for  their  amusement  when  we 
should  meet.  I  related  the  incident  to  my  family  that  day  at 
dinner  and  told  them  of  my  purpose,  whereupon  my  youngest 
daughter,  a  little  girl  of  seven,  archly  asked  me  if  I  could  not 
guess  who  was  the  author  of  the  letter,  which  was  signed  by  a 
name  I  did  not  know.  I  answered  that  I  had  not  the  sHghtest 
idea.  She  could  contain  herself  no  longer,  but  burst  out 
laughing,  and  confessed  she  had  risen  early  that  morning, 
had  written  the  letter,  and  had  gone  before  breakfast  to  the 
post  office  to  mail  it. 

One  day  a  gentleman  called  at  my  office  and  informed  me 
that  he  was  the  historian  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and 
that  he  wanted  me  to  get  him  a  good  place  in  the  government 
service  which  would  support  him  while  he  was  at  leisure  to 
prosecute  his  great  work!  I  assured  him  that  while  I  was 
personally  much  interested  in  history  and  in  literature,  his 
aspirations  lay  quite  beyond  my  official  jurisdiction.  Yet  this 
used  to  be  the  way  in  which  many  places  in  the  government 
services  were  filled. 

Even  in  the  routine  work  of  the  office  I  was  sometimes 
startled  by  the  peculiar  character  of  our  duties.  For  instance, 
there  was  a  place  of  "disciplinarian"  in  the  Indian  School 
service,  somewhat  different  from  that  of  either  principal  or 
teacher,  and  I  understood,  confidentially,  that  one  of  the  chief 
functions  of  the  disciplinarian  was  to  do  the  spanking.  We 
received  one  day  a  requisition  for  a  disciplinarian  "with  a 
good  knowledge  of  music."  This  filled  the  Commission  with 
food  for  earnest  thought. 

Before  I  went  to  Washington  I  determined  that  I  would  never 
make  any  recommendations  to  the  President  for  any  civil  posi- 
tion whatever,  and  when  I  came  on  the  Commission  I  found  that 
this  rule  had  already  been  adopted  by  the  other  Commission- 
ers and  we  none  of  us  gave  the  President  any  advice  as  to 
any  person  proposed  for  an  office  unless  he  requested  it. 


ON  THE  COMMISSION  149 

But  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  we  made  no  recommenda- 
tions I  soon  found  that  I  had  the  reputation  of  having  great 
influence  at  the  White  House  and  the  correspondence  soliciting 
my  interposition  became  quite  extensive.  One  of  the  news- 
papers had  an  editorial  with  the  headline,  "Dudley's  at 
the  Bat,"  referring  to  the  consternation  of  old-time  Indiana 
politicians  who  began  to  fear  that  there  was  not  a  job  to  be 
given  out  or  a  pie  to  be  cut,  but  that  "Teddy  would  pass  it  to 
Dudley."  The  article  pictured  them  as  weeping  at  the  doors 
of  the  White  House  as  I  passed  in  at  pleasure  and  held  the 
ear  of  the  President  while  others  were  compelled  to  wait  for  a 
smile  of  recognition  and  the  smile  was  all  they  got. 

Other  papers  began  to  talk  about  a  "kitchen  cabinet" 
composed  of  a  group  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  personal  friends. 
Indeed  our  relations  with  the  President  were  quite  intimate. 
Proctor  and  I  had  many  of  our  interviews  with  him  while  he 
was  in  the  hands  of  his  barber,  just  after  lunch.  A  President 
has  to  economize  his  time  and  naturally  it  is  with  his  closer 
friends  that  he  must  improve  such  opportunities.  We  used 
to  call  such  an  interview  le  petit  lever  and  many  of  the  meas- 
ures for  improving  the  civil  service  were  discussed  and  often 
adopted  on  these  occasions. 

Everyone  who  lived  during  the  early  part  of  Roosevelt's  ad- 
ministration will  remember  what  an  excitement  was  aroused 
in  the  South  when  he  entertained  Booker  T.  Washington  the 
negro  at  the  White  House  table.  We  had  something  which 
occurred  in  the  Commission  which  seemed  like  the  Booker 
Washington  case  in  petto.     The  circumstances  were  these: 

Since  1894  Congress  had  refused  appropriations  for  any 
increase  in  the  clerical  force  of  the  Commission,  although  the 
classified  service  had  grown  enormously.  We  were  unable  to 
conduct  even  our  ordinary  business  with  the  force  at  our 
disposal.  We  brought  this  matter  to  the  President's  attention. 
He  directed  the  members  of  his  Cabinet  to  detail  to  us  from 
their  departments  a  force  sufficient  to  carry  on  our  work,  and 
we  began  to  confer  with  the  representatives  of  these  depart- 
ments as  to  the  persons  they  were  to  send  us.  One  day  there 
came  into  my  office  a  representative  of  the  Treasury  Depart- 


150  ROOSEVELT'S  ADMINISTRATION 

ment.    He  gave  me  a  list  of  those  they  proposed  to  send.    He 
read  the  names  and  finally  came  to  that  of  a  clerk  whom  we 
will  call  Margaret  Brown.    He  described  her  qualifications — 
she  was  accurate,  neat,  faithful,  deserving  in  every  way — and 
"black  as  the  ace  of  spades."     Two  of  the  heads  of  our 
divisions  were  present  and  they  both  exclaimed,"  That  will 
never  do,  we  have  some    Southern  women  in  our   divisions 
and  they  will  at  once  resign. "    I  observed  that  there  was  no 
law  requiring  them  to  remain  in  the  service  against  their  will 
and  asked  the  representative  of  the  Treasury  Department 
how  this  clerk  had  entered  the  service.     "She  entered  by 
passing  your  examination,"  he  replied,  "and  she  passed  it  well." 
I  answered  that  I  would  begin  by  making  her  my  own  clerk 
in  my  own  office  and  I  did,  and  found  her  extremely  well- 
behaved  and  efficient.     I  was  much  struck  with  the  attitude 
of  Commissioner  Proctor,  who  at  the  time  was  absent  from  the 
city.    When  he  returned  I  reported  what  had  occurred.    He 
was  a  Southerner  and  had  been  a  Confederate  soldier.     I 
thought  he  might  look  at  the  matter  in  a  different  light,  but  he 
answered,  "You  did  perfectly  right.     The  law  makes  no  dis- 
crimination and  we  can  make  none.    She  would  have  been  as 
welcome  to  a  place  in  my  room  as  she  was  in  yours." 

One  afternoon,  shortly  before  the  holidays,  while  I  was 
going  home  from  the  Commission  I  saw  a  letter  carrier  engaged 
in  angry  altercation  with  the  driver  of  a  private  carriage.  The 
carrier  was  standing  at  the  edge  of  the  sidewalk  and  the  coach- 
man, a  negro,  was  on  the  box  in  the  middle  of  the  street.  The 
carrier  was  swearing  furiously  at  the  coachman  and  calling 
him  vile  names.  It  seems  that  he  had  almost  run  into  the 
horses  on  his  bicycle  and  had  frightened  them  and  the  colored 
driver  had  protested.  The  carrier,  who  was  a  Southerner, 
resented  this  as  "  a  piece  of  impudence  which  he  would  never 
brook  from  a  nigger."  The  carrier  now  drew  a  revolver.  The 
coachman  asked  someone  to  hold  the  horses,  jumped  from  his 
seat,  and  rushed  toward  the  sidewalk.  It  seemed  as  if  a  fight 
were  imminent  and  I  sprang  between  the  combatants.  The 
carrier's  hand  was  unsteady  and  he  seemed  to  me  intoxicated 
but  he  was  taking  as  deliberate  aim  as  he  could  at  the  coach- 


CONSULAR  SERVICE  151 

man  and  I  was  just  between  them,  and  I  thought  that  by- 
putting  on  a  bold  front  something  might  be  done,  so  I  cried 
out  at  the  top  of  my  voice,  "  Drop  that  pistol,  "  and  advanced 
straight  toward  him.  The  plan  worked  and  he  dropped  his 
arm.  The  lady  who  owned  the  carriage  now  came  down  the 
steps  of  the  house  before  which  the  quarrel  had  occurred.  The 
coachman  returned  to  his  box  and  the  carrier  walked  away. 
I  at  once  went  to  the  post  office  and  made  a  complaint  against 
him.  There  I  was  told  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  taking  drugs 
and  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  man  who  did  this  and  carried  at  the 
same  time  a  concealed  weapon  ought  not  to  be  in  the  service. 
An  investigation  followed  and  the  carrier  was  suspended 
for  thirty  days  without  pay,  which  seemed  to  me  an  inadequate 
penalty,  but  of  course  that  was  a  matter  for  the  Department. 
This  was  only  one  of  many  instances  which  have  convinced 
me  that  large  numbers  of  employees  are  retained  in  the  civil 
service  who  ought  not  to  be  there;  that  this  is  done  principally 
on  account  of  the  kindness  of  the  superior  officer  and  his  un- 
willingness to  inflict  the  severe  punishment  of  dismissal,  and  I 
have  come  to  believe  that  a  concurrent  jurisdiction  on  the  part 
of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  giving  that  body  the  power  to 
inffict  such  punishment  after  proper  investigation  would  be  a 
valuable  aid  to  discipline. 

CONSULAR  SERVICE 

One  of  the  important  matters  which  received  the  attention 
of  Congress  in  the  early  part  of  1902  was  the  question  of  the 
consular  service.  At  this  time  it  was  not  quite  in  as  deplor- 
able a  condition  as  it  had  been  during  the  worst  days  of  the 
spoils  system,  but  it  was  still  pretty  bad.  The  service  had 
attained  an  importance  far  beyond  that  of  earlier  times.  We 
had  become  the  foremost  productive  nation  of  the  world, 
seeking  markets  everywhere..  There  was  need  of  the  highest 
kind  of  ability  in  the  consular  service  to  make  the  most  of  our 
opportunities.  The  system  of  political  appointments  how- 
ever seemed  to  proceed  upon  the  idea  thatTanybody  was  fit 
to  be  consul  without  any  training  for  the  place.      In  many 


152  ROOSEVELTS  ADMINISTRATION 

places  we  had  politicians,  broken  down  professional  and 
business  men,  invalids,  men  who  desired  to  go  abroad  for  the 
purpose  of  educating  their  children,  and  sometimes  men  who 
were  not  good  for  anything  else  and  were  made  consuls  on 
that  account.  The  terms  were  so  short  and  the  pay  generally 
so  meager  that  first-class  men  would  not  offer  themselves. 
The  most  ludicrous  stories  were  told  of  the  ignorance,  boorish- 
ness,  and  incapacity  of  many  of  our  consuls.  Their  speeches 
at  public  reunions  have  many  a  time  caused  Americans  to 
blush  for  their  country.  Some  of  them  were  habitual  drunk- 
ards. One  entered  in  his  expense  account  "15  yards  of  '  roap, * ' ' 
so  much  "hamb, "  so  much  "bleeched"  "musslin. "  Another 
refused  to  certify  to  a  collection  of  dried  insects  as  museimi 
specimens,  believing  that  they  were  medicinal  substances ! 

On  the  other  hand,  many  of  the  ablest  reports  on  the  foreign 
markets  were  made  by  American  consuls  who  appeared  to 
have  won  their  places,  however,  quite  by  accident.  A  few 
feeble  efforts  had  been  made  to  remedy  this  system.  "Pass 
examinations"  were  repeatedly  instituted  but  had  fallen  into 
disuse,  and  now  once  more  the  matter  was  up  for  consideration 
in  Congress  and  the  proposition  was  made  that  some  sort  of 
examination  should  be  established.  This,  however,  was 
vigorously  opposed  by  many,  among  them  by  Champ  Clark, 
the  Democratic  leader  of  the  House,  who  declared  that  he 
was  not  opposed  to  a  merit  system,  and  repeated  it  with 
emphasis  "so  that  no  idiot  could  go  away  and  misconstrue 
it";  but  his  idea  of  a  merit  system  was  that  when  the  Re- 
publicans carried  the  election  they  had  a  right  to  the  offices 
and  when  the  Democrats  carried  it  they  had  a  right  to  them. 
"But  here  is  the  objection,"  he  added,  "in  this  consular 
business.  In  the  civil  service  reform  examinations  as  now 
conducted,  they  do  not  ascertain  a  man's  fitness  to  be  a 
consul,  because  the  examinations  are  not  about  things  which 
a  consul  ought  to  know  in  order  to  render  the  best  service." 
As  there  were  no  civil  service  examinations  at  all  for  the 
position  of  constd  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Clark,  "Might  I  ask  to 
what  examinations  you  refer?"  and  I  added,  "If  there  are  any 
examinations  of  the  Commission  for  any  offices  in  any  branch 


CONSULAR  SERVICE  153 

of  the  services  which  are  defective  or  are  not  practical  I  should 
like  to  know  it,  to  the  end  that  such  defects  may  be  speedily 
corrected."  I  received  no  answer  and  when  Mr.  Clark  was 
asked  by  a  newspaper  man  if  he  intended  to  reply  he  said, 
"I  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Foulke  and  threw  it  into  the 
waste  basket  where  it  belongs.  I  do  not  consider  my  remarks 
any  of  Mr.  Foulke's  business  and  if  he  will  attend  to  his 
business  I  will  attend  to  mine." 

This  action  upon  the  part  of  one  who  afterwards  became 
Speaker  and  a  candidate  for  the  nomination  for  the  presi- 
dency, thus  criticizing  examinations  which  never  had  any  ex- 
istence, is  a  startling  commentary  on  the  character  of  much  of 
otir  Congressional  representation. 

Congress,  however,  took  no  action  and  in  December,  1902, 
I  suggested  to  the  President  that  since  that  body  would  not 
enact  a  competitive  system  into  law  he  might  still  provide 
rules  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  his  executive  discretion  in 
making  nominations  to  the  Senate.  He  told  me  he  would 
much  like  to  do  this,  but  that  he  felt  it  would  not  be  wise; 
that  in  view  of  the  refusal  by  Congress  to  act  he  doubted 
whether  persons  nominated  by  him  under  such  a  system,  if 
established  by  the  Executive  alone,  would  be  confirmed  by  the 
Senate  at  all.  The  Senate  could  reject  any  of  his  appoint- 
ments and  if  they  considered  that  the  adoption  of  this  system 
was  an  invasion  of  their  prerogative,  they  would  be  very 
likely  to  refuse  confirmation.  He  thought  it  would  be 
unfortunate  to  attempt  to  establish  such  a  system  and 
fail  and  he  believed  that  at  the  present  time  he  would 
not  succeed.^ 

»  Sometime  after  I  left  the  Commission,  however,  important  steps  were 
taken  to  improve  the  consular  service.  On  April  5, 1906,  an  act  reorganiz- 
ing it  was  approved  by  the  President  and  on  June  27th  he  promulgated  an 
executive  order  providing  that  all  positions  where  the  salary  exceeded  $2500 
should  be  filled  by  promotion  based  upon  ability  and  efficiency  in  service, 
while  the  consulships  of  a  lower  grade  should  be  filled  either  by  promotion 
from  consular  clerks,  vice-consuls,  deputy-consuls,  and  others,  or  after  a 
pass  examination.  Among  the  obligatory  subjects  of  examination  there 
was  to  be  at  least  one  modern  language  other  than  English,  political 
economy,  international,  commercial,  and  maritime  law,  and  an  account  of 


154  ROOSEVELTS  ADMINISTRATION 

CONTROVERSIES  WITH  CRITICS 

A  good  part  of  my  duties  as  member  of  the  Civil  Service 
Commission  consisted  in  the  work  of  propaganda,  in  speeches 
and  articles  in  support  of  the  competitive  system,  and  also  in 
answering  attacks  upon  the  reform  in  Congress  and  elsewhere. 
I  always  felt  that  it  was  as  much  a  part  of  my  duty  to  defend 
the  action  of  the  administration  in  support  of  the  reform  as  it 
would  have  been  the  duty  of  a  Cabinet  officer  to  defend  the 
general  policies  of  the  President. 

There  were  a  few  of  his  appointments  that  were  criticized 
by  his  old  friends  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League, 
for  instance,  that  of  John  S.  Clarkson,  "a  pronounced  enemy 
of  the  system  with  a  record  as  a  spoilsman, "  as  Surveyor  of  the 
Port  of  New  York.  Many  of  us  were  astonished  at  this  ap- 
pointment by  the  President. 

I  said  to  him  that  Clarkson  had  the  appointment  and  man- 
agement of  a  large  number  of  subordinates  in  the  civil  service ; 
that  it  might  well  be  doubted  whether  a  man  who  was  opposed 
to  the  competitive  system,  as  he  had  been,  would  enforce  that 
system  in  his  own  office  as  well  as  one  who  was  friendly  to  it; 
and  I  suggested  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  caution  Mr. 
Clarkson  in  regard  to  his  observance  of  the  civil  service  law. 

the  resources  and  commerce  of  the  United  States  especially  with  reference 
to  extending  trade. 

The  examinations  were  limited  to  citizens  specially  designated  by  the 
President  and  if  the  positions  to  be  filled  were  in  a  country  where  the 
United  States  exercised  extra-territorial  jurisdiction  a  supplementary 
examination  was  held  in  common  law,  evidence,  and  the  trial  of  civil  and 
criminal  cases. 

The  President  might  appoint  any  person  who  had  passed  without  regard 
to  his  relative  standing. 

Of  course  this  scheme  was  only  a  halfway  measure,  patronage  not  being 
excluded  and  those  designated  for  examination  still  receiving  the  endorse- 
ment of  Senators  or  other  political  authorities  in  their  respective  States, 
and  the  nominations  were  subject  to  confirmation  by  the  Senate.  Yet  it 
was  as  far  as  the  President  felt  he  could  then  go  and  under  it  an  immense 
improvement  was  made  in  the  personnel  of  the  consular  service. 

Later  (as  we  shall  hereafter  see)  similar  provisions  were  enacted  by 
Congress. 


CONTROVERSIES  WITH  CRITICS  155 

The  President  said,  "I  will  write  to  him  at  once, "  and  dictated 
a  letter  beginning,  "You  know  I  am  a  crank  in  regard  to  the 
civil  service  law,  "^  and  then  proceeded  to  ask  Mr.  Clarkson  to 
see  that  the  law  was  thoroughly  observed,  adding,  "If  any 
question  arises,  come  on  to  Washington  and  talk  with  Mr. 
Foulke  and  Mr.  Garfield.  They  are  just  as  good  Republicans 
as  you  are. "  And  then  turning  to  me  he  added,  "  If  I  were  to 
tell  him  to  talk  to  Proctor  he  would  think  I  was  turning  him 
over  to  be  a  victim  of  some  Democratic  scheme. " 

The  President  knew  Clarkson  better  than  his  critics  and 
so  completely  did  Mr.  Clarkson's  views  upon  the  subject 
change  with  his  new  experience  that  when  he  retired  from  his 
position  in  1900  he  wrote,  "The  Customs  service  will  never 
attain  its  rightful  and  possible  efficiency  until  it  is  completely 
separated  from  political  influence." 

Another  appointment  for  which  the  President  incurred  much 
criticism  was  that  of  Henry  C.  Payne  of  Wisconsin  as  Post- 
master-General in  place  of  Charles  Emory  Smith,  who  had 
resigned.  Mr.  Payne  had  been  a  political  leader  and  manager 
in  Wisconsin  and  the  selection  of  such  a  man  to  be  the  head 
of  the  department  controlling  more  appointments  than  any 
other  awakened  much  animadversion.  The  President  told 
me  why  he  had  made  it.     He  said : 

When  President  McKinley  died  I  accepted  his  Cabinet  in  its  entirety. 
There  was  not  a  single  politician  in  it.  He  did  not  need  any.  He  was  such 
a  skillful  politician  himself  that  he  did  not  require  the  advice  of  any  other , 
but  with  me  it  is  different.  I  do  not  see  as  clearly  as  he  did  how  my  action 
will  affect  public  opinion  or  influence  political  affairs  and  I  want  someone 
who  can  advise  me  and  tell  what  its  effect  will  be.  That  is  the  reason  I  have 
asked  Mr.  Payne  to  become  Postmaster-General, 

Whatever  were  Mr.  Payne's  aptitudes  or  shortcomings,  he 
did  nothing  during  his  term  of  office  to  cripple  the  competitive 
system.  On  the  contrary  he  advanced  it,  for  he  announced 
that  it  was  the  policy  of  the  administration  that  fourth-class 
postmasters  were  not  to  be  generally  changed  at  the  end  of  any 

^  On  another  occasion,  while  Proctor  and  I  were  present,  he  said,  "I  don't 
think  I  am  going  to  have  much  trouble  with  Congress  in  regard  to  the  civil 
service  law.    They  realize  that  I  am  a  maniac  upon  the  subi'ect. " 


156  ROOSEVELT'S  ADMINISTRATION 

particular  term  but  were  to  hold  office  indefinitely  if  their  ser- 
vice was  satisfactory. 

An  amusing  correspondence  was  that  with  the  editor  of  the 
Newport  Herald  who,  in  an  article  on  May  2,  1902,  entitled 
"Evading  Civil  Service  Rules,"  had  said,  first:  that  President 
Roosevelt  had  ordered  more  places  taken  out  of  the  classified 
service  during  the  past  few  months  than  McKinley  during  five 
years ;  second :  that  the  records  of  the  Commission  showed  a 
surprisingly  large  number  of  exceptions  ordered  within  the 
past  six  months ;  third :  that  some  of  the  positions  thus  filled 
had  been  restored  to  the  Civil  Service  immediately  after  the 
appointment  of  the  individual  for  whom  the  exception  was 
made;  fourth:  that  there  had  been  three  times  as  many 
appointments  under  Roosevelt  as  under  McKlinley  in  cases 
where  extraordinary,  special,  or  technical  qualifications  were 
required;  fifth:  that  there  had  been  a  large  and  unknown 
number  of  places  filled  without  examination  for  temporary  job 
work ;  sixth :  that  there  was  little  to  boast  of  in  the  way  of 
additions. 

I  took  this  article  to  the  President.  I  was  rather  indignant 
at  it,  and  I  handed  it  to  him  without  comment.  He  looked  it 
over,  put  on  a  quizzical  expression,  and  said,  * '  Well,  am  I  guilty  ? 
I  am  like  the  man  that  was  arraigned  and  asked  to  plead,  but 
said  he  couldn't  tell  whether  he  was  guilty  or  not  till  he  had 
heard  the  evidence.  I  thought  I  had  been  doing  pretty  well 
for  civil  service  reform.     Maybe  I  haven't;  tell  me  how  it  is. " 

On  May  8th,  I  published  an  answer  to  the  article.  I  com- 
pared its  assertions  to  the  celebrated  definition  of  the  crab, 
"a  small  red  fish  that  walks  backwards,"  which  was  perfect 
except  that  the  crab  was  not  red,  was  not  a  fish,  and  did  not 
walk  backwards. 

In  the  present  case,  not  one  of  the  Herald's  statements  was 
correct .  The  President  had  not  ordered  a  single  place  out  of  the 
classified  service.  He  had  specifically  excepted  ten  persons 
from  examinations.  In  none  of  these  cases  did  the  position 
revert  to  the  classified  service  for  it  had  never  been  taken  out. 
It  was  not  true  that  three  times  as  many  appointments  were 
made  under  Roosevelt  as  under  McKinley  by  the  rule  except- 


CONTROVERSIES  IVITH  CRITICS  157 

ing  places  requiring  peculiar,  special,  or  technical  qualifications. 
Under  McKinley  twenty-one  were  thus  excepted  and  under 
Roosevelt  only  five,  A  door-keeper  at  the  White  House  was 
so  appointed,  because  where  the  life  of  a  President  was  at 
stake  unusual  qualifications  were  required.  "We  had  no  per- 
son on  any  eligible  list  who  seemed  competent  for  this  duty, 
and  I  for  one  was  only  too  glad  to  except  a  man  whom  I 
believed  could  properly  perform  it." 

The  rule  for  the  employment  of  temporary  appointees  for  a 
temporary  job  was  passed  at  the  recommendation  of  the  Com- 
mission, since  it  seemed  absurd  to  go  through  the  delay  of  certi- 
fying from  eligible  registers,  perhaps  from  remote  sections  of 
the  country,  persons  who  would  be  employed  only  for  a  few 
days  and  then  discharged. 

It  was  not  true  that  the  Commissioners  did  not  know  how 
many  appointments  were  thus  made.  On  the  contrary,  it  was 
known  that  the  total  number  was  193.  As  to  the  statement 
that  "there  was  little  to  boast  of  in  the  way  of  additions  tend- 
ing to  strengthen  the  civil  service  rules"  I  answered  that  there 
had  been  no  administration  in  which  the  competitive  system 
had  advanced  with  greater  rapidity  and  certainty  during  an 
equal  period  of  time.^ 

^The  Washington  Post  in  an  editorial  entitled  "A  Knock  by  Homer 
Foulke  "  caught  me  in  a  grammatical  mistake  in  the  above  letter.  The 
editorial  said: 

"  In  a  visitors'  book  in  one  of  the  show  places  in  England  someone  wrote 
an  inscription  in  eulogy  of  '  The  great  man  who  it  had  once  served  for  a 
home  *  and  underneath  this  another  traveler  scribbled  the  stanza: 

'  I  note  'twas  written  in  a  hurry, 
To  criticize  I  won't  presume. 
And  yet  methinks  that  Lindley  Murray 
Instead  of  "  who  "  had  written  "whom."' 

•'  It  is  the  reverse  comment  which  we  should  make  against  a  sentence 
in  Commissioner  Foulke's  recent  letter  to  the  editor  of  the  Newport 
Herald:  '  We  had  no  person  on  an}''  eligible  list  known  to  be  com- 
petent for  this  duty  and  I  for  one  would  only  be  too  glad  to  except  from 
examination  a  man  whom  I  believed  could  properly  perform  it.' 

"  Far  be  it  from  the  Post  to  administer  so  much  as  the  gentlest  rebuke  to 
Mr.  Foulke  for  his  slip  of  the  pen.     His  ofi&cial  position  entitles  him  to  be 


158  ROOSEVELTS  ADMINISTRATION 

WASHINGTON  ASSOCIATIONS 

In  April,  1902,  Commissioner  Rodenberg  declared  his  pur- 
pose of  resigning  from  the  Commission  in  order  to  make  the 
race  for  Congress  in  his  district  and  James  R.  Garfield,  son  of 
the  former  President,  was  appointed  in  his  place.  At  a  later 
period  we  divided  our  duties,  Mr.  Proctor  taking  principal 
charge  of  the  examinations,  Mr.  Garfield  superintending  the 
internal  administration  of  the  Commission  and  harmonizing 
our  work  with  the  various  departments,  while  the  general  out- 
side business  of  the  Commission,  particularly  in  regard  to  in- 
vestigations, propaganda,  and  resisting  attacks  devolved  mainly 
upon  me.  This  was  an  extremely  congenial  occupation.  I 
loved  a  "  scrap  "  on  behalf  of  what  I  considered  a  good  cause 
and  I  had  many  of  them. 

We  Commissioners  were  close  personal  friends.  We  visited 
each  other  often,  we  made  New  Year  calls  together,  both  at 
the  White  House  and  elsewhere.  We  took  ntmierous  horseback 
rides,  sometimes  together,  sometimes  with  the  President.  I 
remember  one  of  these  occasions  when  Proctor  and  I  were 
riding  in  Rock  Creek  Park.  We  had  reached  the  summit  of 
a  headland  overlooking  the  Creek  with  a  precipitous  incline 
and  below  us  we  saw  two  horsemen  struggling  up  the  sides  of 
this  steep  acclivity  among  the  bushes.  Proctor  looked  over 
and  exclaimed,  ''Who  are  these  damned  fools  who  have  left 
the  road  and  are  trying  to  climb  this  cliff?"  and  a  moment 
later  he  cried,  "Good  Lord!  it's  the  President. "  It  was  indeed 
Mr  Roosevelt,  who  was  followed  by  General  Young,  then  the 
ranking  officer  of  the  army,  and  by  an  orderly  some  distance 
behind.     They  soon  reached  the  top  of  the  cliff,  but  here  there 

independent  of  all  rules  except  those  laid  down  by  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission, and  as  to  these  he  is  not  amenable  to  the  grammatical  standards 
prescribed  by  his  subordinates,  the  members  of  the  examining  board.  To 
parody  the  lines  in  the  visitors'  book: 

"  Commissioners  excite  no  wonder 

By  writing  'whom'  instead  of  *  who,' 
Though  candidates  by  such  a  blunder 

Might  lose  their  chance  of  pulling  through." 


WASHINGTON  ASSOCIATIONS  159 

was  a  high  fence  and  no  means  of  getting  over  it,  so  the  Presi- 
dent started  down  again.  I  rode  ahead  and  found  an  opening 
and  shouted  to  him  that  he  could  get  through.  He  came  up 
again  and  passed  into  the  road,  crying  out  to  Proctor  and  me, 
"Come  and  join  us. "  We  did  so  and  in  a  few  moments  we  all 
dashed  down  through  the  bushes  again  into  the  ravine  in 
another  place  and  galloped  on  without  any  reference  to  road, 
creek,  rocks,  or  anything  else  whatever.  Pretty  soon  we  came 
to  a  field  and  then  to  a  fence  with  an  open  gate.  The  Presi- 
dent leaped  the  fence.  General  Young  rode  through  the 
gate  and  Proctor  and  I  followed  his  more  modest  example. 
It  was  a  wild  ride  until  we  reached  again  the  streets  of 
Washington. 

Unfortunately  about  half  of  the  working  hours  of  an  official 
in  Washington  are  taken  up  with  interviews  and  conversations 
with  various  persons  which  cannot  be  avoided,  and  which  con- 
sume time  to  little  purpose.  One  person  after  another  will 
bring  to  us,  with  great  detail,  some  supposed  grievance  which 
ought  to  be  handled  by  a  subordinate,  or  some  Congressman 
will  come  with  a  story  of  very  pressing  reasons  why  the  civil 
service  laws  ought  to  be  suspended  in  favor  of  some  particular 
proteg^  of  his  own.  It  would  not  do  to  refuse  to  see  any  of 
these  persons.  The  Commission  was  unpopular  enough  as  it 
was  and  to  decline  to  listen  to  grievances  or  explanations  con- 
nected with  the  service  would  be  inexcusable.  The  result  was 
that  the  days  would  go  by  and  little  be  done  and  it  was  only 
the  "odds  and  ends  and  fringes  of  time"  which  were  left  for 
our  most  important  work.  If  such  an  evil  is  great  in  respect 
to  a  body  like  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  how  unendurable 
must  it  be  to  the  heads  of  the  principal  departments  and  to  the 
President,  continually  beset  at  all  hours  with  the  most  harass- 
ing importunities ! 

The  relations  of  the  Commission  with  the  various  depart- 
ments were  excellent.  We  were  friends  with  them  all.  Under 
previous  administrations  there  had  been  much  conflict  and 
considerable  exasperation  attending  the  dealings  of  the  Com- 
mission with  members  of  the  Cabinet,  but  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  a  President  who  was  so  strong  a  supporter  of  the 


i6o  ROOSEVELVS  ADMINISTRATION 

merit  system  all  this  disappeared.  We  were  also  on  very 
cordial  terms  with  many  of  the  bureaus  and  independent 
offices.  I  remember  particularly  that  we  were  very  friendly 
with  Mr.  Ware,  the  Commissioner  of  Pensions,  who,  quite  in 
contrast  with  his  predecessors,  was  a  great  believer  in  the  com- 
petitive system  and  did  what  he  could  to  advance  it  in  a  bu- 
reau in  which  politics  had  been  deeply  ingrained.  In  addition 
to  being  a  Pension  Commissioner  he  was  a  versifier  and  would 
write  rhymes  on  every  occasion.  Once  when  he  took  a  short 
vacation  on  account  of  illness  he  communicated  the  fact  to  the 
President  in  the  following  limerick: 

I  take  up  this  piece  of  plumbago 
To  tell  you  I've  got  the  lumbago, 

So  I'm  off  and  away  for  a  week  and  a  day 
For  I  feel  like  a  very  bum  Dago. 

It  was  generally  from  Congressmen  that  the  most  violent 
opposition  came  not  only  to  the  merit  system  but  to  those  who 
administered  it,  yet  we  had  some  notable  defenders  in  both 
Houses  who  held  up  our  antagonists  to  ridicule.  On  one 
occasion  an  attack  was  made  upon  the  system  by  some  enthusi- 
astic advocates  of  "the  good  old  plan"  who  had  packed  the 
galleries  with  a  crowd  of  supporters  that  applauded  their  sen- 
timents vociferously.  Mr.  Allen,  of  Mississippi,  one  of  our 
friends,  told  of  an  unsatisfied  dog  who  had  howled  on  a  Missis- 
sippi plantation  the  livelong  night  and  kept  everybody  awake. 
The  planter  and  one  of  his  field  hands  were  in  consultation  as 
to  the  reason  for  this.  "Massa, "  said  the  negro,  "you  know 
what  makes  him  howl. "  But  the  planter  protested  he  did  not. 
"What ! "  exclaimed  the  negro,  "you  live  more'n  forty  years  on 
dis  plantation  and  doan*  know  what  makes  a  dog  howl  ?  Why, 
Massa,  a  dog  howls  when  he  smells  somethin'  and  can't 
locate  it."  "Now,"  continued  Mr.  Allen,  pointing  to  the 
galleries,  "these  gentlemen  smell  pie,  but  they  are  unable  as 
yet  to  locate  it,  hence  the  uproar." 

The  Commissioners  were  fortunate  in  another  particular. 
They  had  an  excellent  corps  of  subordinates,  able,  reliable,  and 
cooperative,  willing  to  turn  in  and  work  overtime  if  necessary 


fVASHINGTON  ASSOCIATIONS  i6i 

when  something  important  was  pending,  and  all  warm  advo- 
cates of  the  competitive  system. 

Mr.  John  T.  Doyle,  secretary  of  the  Commission,  who  had 
been  with  that  body  since  its  organization,  was  peculiarly  effi- 
cient. He  had,  however,  strong  convictions  of  his  own  as  to  how 
the  law  ought  to  be  administered.  He  had  an  inscrutable  face. 
Proctor  used  to  say  it  was  the  best  poker  face  he  had  ever 
known  though  I  do  not  believe  Doyle  availed  himself  of  its 
advantages.  But  we  always  noticed  that  whenever  we  tried 
to  do  anything  that  Doyle  did  not  think  was  best,  while  he 
never  opposed  us,  it  always  seemed  as  if  Providence  interposed 
more  obstacles  to  what  we  wanted  done  than  would  seem  hu- 
manly possible,  and  in  spite  of  our  secretary's  respectful  and 
compliant  course  he  often  had  his  own  way.  And  this  was 
probably  right,  for  as  the  permanent  secretary  of  the  Com- 
mission he  had  a  more  complete  knowledge  of  the  details  of 
the  system  than  we,  the  Commissioners,  who  were  the  ephem- 
eral creatures  of  successive  Presidents,  passing  in  and  out 
as  political  and  other  considerations  might  dictate.  We 
were  certainly  greatly  attached  to  Mr.  Doyle.  The  com- 
petitive system  has  never  had  a  more  faithful  or  competent 
administrator. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

I  HAVE  Spoken  incidentally  of  a  number  of  the  measures 
adopted  to  advance  the  competitive  system.  It  is  now  time 
to  consider  more  in  detail  the  precise  character  of  the  reforms 
accomplished.  These  may  conveniently  be  divided  into  three 
general  classes:  first,  extensions  of  the  competitive  system; 
second,  changes  in  the  rules;  and  third,  improved  efficiency  in 
the  execution  of  the  law. 

The  extensions  embraced:  the  Rural  Free  Delivery  service; 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  field  service  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment; the  employees  rendered  necessary  because  of  increased 
work  incidental  to  the  war  with  Spain;  places  in  the  Insular 
service;  employees  of  the  permanent  Census  office;  Indian 
agents,  and  Cuban  employees.  Besides  these  a  system  of  regis- 
tration for  laborers  was  inaugurated  and  greater  permanency 
was  given  in  fourth-class  postmasterships. 

RURAL  FREE  DELIVERY 

The  Rural  Free  Delivery  service  had  been  instituted  as  an 
experiment  but  it  had  become  so  useful  and  popular  that  its 
permanency  was  assured  and  it  had  given  promise  of  being 
perhaps  the  most  extensive  branch  of  the  entire  service,  super- 
seding to  a  large  extent  the  fourth-class  post  offices.  The 
service  had  not  been  classified  by  the  Commission  when  it  was 
established  because  it  was  "experimental."  But  on  Novem- 
ber 27,  1901,  twelve  days  after  I  entered  that  body,  a  rule  for 
the  purpose  was  promulgated  by  the  President. 

There  was  no  choice  here  as  elsewhere  between  the  three 

162 


SPANISH  IV A R  EMPLOYEES  163 

graded  highest.     That  person  was  selected  whose  name  was  at 
the  head  of  the  list.  ^ 

FIELD   BRANCHES,   WAR  DEPARTMENT 

The  next  extensions  were  those  of  various  field  branches  of 
the  War  Department.  Prior  to  May  29,  1899,  there  was  in 
that  service  a  considerable  number  of  places  in  the  quarter- 
master's, medical,  ordnance,  and  engineer's  departments  at 
large,  admission  to  which  was  secured  by  competitive  but  non- 
educational  tests  prescribed  by  the  Commission.  On  that  day 
President  McKinley  by  executive  order  took  many  of  these 
positions  out  of  the  competitive  class  and  provided  that  ap- 
pointments should  be  made  upon  tests  to  be  prescribed  by  the 
Secretary  of  War  and  approved  by  the  President. 

There  were  other  similar  places  which  were  not  embraced 
in  the  President's  order  and  had  apparently  been  overlooked. 
Moreover,  no  regulations  or  tests  were  ever  prescribed  by  the 
Secretary  of  War.  But  Mr.  Alger  who  was  then  Secretary 
had  been  succeeded  by  Mr.  Root,  and  under  him,  in  April, 
1901,  the  Assistant  Secretary  recommended  that  the  order 
be  rescinded.  This  was  done  by  President  Roosevelt  on 
November  18,  1901.  The  total  nimiber  of  positions  thus 
restored  was  1888. 

SPANISH  WAR  EMPLOYEES 

The  next  extension  made  was  that  of  employees  appointed 
because  of  increased  work  incident  to  the  war  with  Spain. 
It  had  been  provided  by  law  that  these  should  be  employed 
without  complying  with  the  Civil  Service  Act  and  on  April  28, 
1902, 850  persons  had  been  thus  appointed  without  examination. 
On  that  date  an  act  was  passed  providing  that  these  employees 
should  be  transferred  to  the  classified  service  and  this  was  done. 

»  Some  years  later  President  Taft  changed  the  rule  and  gave  the  appoint- 
ing officer  the  choice  between  the  three  highest.  This  was  an  unfortunate 
change  for  after  Mr.  Wilson  became  President,  Mr.  Burleson,  his  Post- 
master-General, permitted  these  lists  to  be  used  in  such  a  way  as  to  secure 
in  many  cases  the  selection  of  political  appointees  through  the  recom- 
mendation of  Congressmen.     (See  infra,  Chapter  XVII.) 


i64  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

PERMANENT  CENSUS   BUREAU 

Another  addition  to  the  service  consisted  of  837  employees 
in  the  permanent  Census  Bureau.  The  proceedings  by  which 
this  was  done  have  been  already  described  in  the  chapter  relat- 
ing to  the  Census. 

INSULAR   SERVICE 

In  Porto  Rico  the  federal  positions  governed  by  the  Civil 
Service  Act  embraced  301  places  of  which  233  were  subject  to 
competitive  examinations.  By  our  direction,  Dr.  Leadley, 
chief  of  one  of  our  divisions,  visited  Porto  Rico  in  March  and 
April,  1902,  organized  a  board  of  examiners,  and  examined 
some  227  applicants,  most  of  whom  were  native  Porto  Ricans. 
The  Insular  and  Municipal  service  of  Porto  Rico  did  not 
however  come  under  the  competitive  system.^ 

Our  Commission  also  aided  in  the  establishment  of  the 
competitive  service  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  sending  some 
two  hundred  appointees  to  the  islands  during  the  year  ending 
June  30,  1902.  During  the  following  year  153  appointments 
were  made. 

Considerable  difficulty  was  at  first  experienced  in  securing 
applicants  owing  to  inadequate  salaries  and  unfavorable  re- 
ports from  the  islands,  but  this  disappeared  in  time  when  it  was 
found  that  men  were  advanced  to  places  of  high  administrative 
importance  when  they  showed  themselves  fit.^ 

^  In  1907,  the  Porto  Rican  legislatnire  passed  a  civil  service  law.  The 
act,  however,  was  very  inadequate. 

The  police  force  and  teachers  are  now  subject  to  a  modified  civil  service 
examination  by  special  laws.  In  1916,  of  5387  employees  only  iioi  were 
in  the  classified  service. 

*  In  later  years  the  policy  of  the  Philippine  government  has  been  to  fill 
vacancies  by  the  appointment  of  native  FiUpinos.  The  proportion  of  na- 
tives in  the  service  has  increased  from  48  per  cent  in  1902  to  more  than  90 
per  cent. 

Many  of  the  Filipinos  are  politicians  who  take  naturally  to  spoils  mon- 
gering  and  patronage.  These  men  are  opposed  to  the  civil  service  law  and 
bills  injurious  to  the  merit  system  have  been  passed  in  the  Philippine  As- 
sembly but  have  not  been  approved  by  the  Philippine  Commission  and  con- 
sequently have  not  been  enacted  into  law. 


THE  LABOR  SERVICE  165 

THE  LABOR  SERVICE 

An  extremely  important  advance  was  made  when  politics 
was  eliminated  from  the  labor  service  of  the  government  by 
the  adoption  of  a  registration  system.  On  July  3,  1902,  we 
secured  from  President  Roosevelt  an  order  that  the  appoint- 
ments of  all  unclassified  laborers  should  be  made  in  accordance 
with  regulations  to  be  promulgated  by  the  heads  of  depart- 
ments and  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  and  on  March  26, 
1903,  another  order  directed  the  Commission  to  aid  the  heads 
of  the  departments  in  establishing  open  competitive  tests. 
We  were  directed  to  prepare  the  regulations  and  to  apply  them 
in  Washington  and  in  such  other  large  cities  as  might  be  agreed 
upon  between  the  Departments  and  the  Commission.  ^ 

The  success  of  the  Navy  Yard  system  devised  by  Secretary 
Tracy  in  1891  showed  that  a  similar  plan  could  be  applied  to 
unclassified  laborers  elsewhere. 

Boards  of  labor  employment  were  shortly  afterwards  es- 
tablished by  the  Post  Office,  Treasury,  Agricultural,  and  Inte- 
rior Departments,  in  the  Government  Printing  Office  and  the 
Smithsonian  Institution. 

There  were  about  2225  laborer  positions  in  Washington  and 
30,000  outside.  According  to  the  new  plan  a  physical  exami- 
nation was  first  made  by  a  physician  and  a  suitable  deduction 
made  for  any  defects.  The  regulations  dealt  chiefly  with 
tests  of  fitness  for  appointment,  consisting  principally  of  writ- 
ten statements  by  the  applicant  and  by  three  reputable  citizens 

Vigorous  complaints  were  made  in  1914,  during  Mr.  Wilson's  administra- 
tion, that  more  than  five  hundred  war  veterans  employed  had  either  been 
ruthlessly  dismissed  or  had  had  their  salaries  reduced  and  that  honorably 
discharged  soldiers  and  sailors  were  separated  from  the  servicfe  without 
cause. 

The  answer  of  Mr.  Garrison,  Secretary  of  War,  was  that  these  changes 
were  but  little  more  than  the  average  diminution  of  American  employees 
for  many  years  and  were  due  to  desirable  retrenchment  and  reduction  in  the 
service. 

^  The  Civil  Service  Act  itself  did  not  contemplate  the  classification  of 
laborers  and  the  President's  authority  to  prescribe  registration  was  con- 
ferred by  Section  1753  of  the  Revised  Statutes  and  by  his  general  consti- 
tutional power  as  head  of  the  executive  branch  of  the  government. 


i66  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

who  had  knowledge  of  his  character  and  qualifications,  and  the 
applications  were  rated  upon  the  elements  of  age,  physical 
qualifications,  industry,  and  adaptability. 

THE   INDIAN  SERVICE 

Something  that  amounted  to  an  extension  of  the  classified 
system  was  adopted  in  the  Indian  service.  In  recent  years  it 
had  been  the  policy  of  the  Indian  Commissioner  to  abandon 
the  Reservation  System  wherever  practicable  and  give  the 
Indians  industrial  training,  and  a  number  of  Indian  agents  had 
been  dropped.  The  law  provided  that  in  such  cases  the  In- 
dian Commissioner,  with  the  approval  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  might  devolve  the  duties  of  agent  upon  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  Indian  school. 

On  November  26,  1901,  the  rules  were  amended  so  as  to 
provide  that  when  this  was  done,  the  agent  might,  in  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  Secretary,  be  given  a  position  in  the  classified 
service  so  that  efficient  men  could  receive  a  more  permanent 
status  than  the  agents  used  to  have  who  were  changed  for 
political  reasons  with  each  new  administration.  So  successful 
was  this  plan  that  on  January  4,  1905,  the  Commission  an- 
nounced that  the  number  of  superintendents  in  charge  of 
agencies  had  increased  to  eighty-six,  most  of  whom  had  been 
continuously  in  the  service  from  ten  to  twenty-five  years,  and 
that  under  this  policy  the  Indian  service  had  been  practically 
taken  out  of  politic 

CUBAN  EMPLOYEES 

Another  extension  was  made  by  the  incorporation  of  certain 
Cuban  employees  in  the  classified  service.  These  men  had 
been  appointed  as  the  result  of  the  occupation  of  Cuba  which 

'  Later  on,  in  November,  1904,  the  President  created  a  Central  Board  of 
Labor  Employment  composed  of  representatives  from  the  different  depart- 
ments and  offices  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  directed  the  Civil  Service 
Commission  to  supervise  its  work.  On  January  12,  1905,  similar  boards 
were  established  in  New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia  and  St.  Louis,  an^ 
latej  this  was  extended  to  a  large  number  of  othej  cities^ 


FOURTH-CLASS  POSTMASTERS  167 

followed  the  war  with  Spain  and  as  they  had  been  chosen  by 
the  military  authorities  they  were  not  political  appointees. 
Many  of  them  had  rendered  valuable  service  under  conditions 
of  personal  danger  from  yellow  fever  and  other  tropical  diseases. 
The  War  Department  furnished  us  with  a  list  of  those  who  it 
was  believed  ought  to  be  permanently  employed.  On  two 
afternoons  General  Leonard  Wood  came  to  the  Commission 
and  we  went  over  with  him  a  list  of  127  names  of  those  whom 
he  had  found  to  be  most  deserving  of  retention.  I  was  as- 
tonished at  the  memory  and  knowledge  of  details  shown  by  the 
General  upon  this  occasion.  He  gave  the  official  biographies  of 
each  of  these  persons,  reciting  in  full  their  acts  of  merit  and  self- 
sacrifice,  and  we  recommended  as  to  nearly  all  of  them  that 
they  should  be  made  eligible  to  appointment  in  the  classified 
service.  This  was  done  by  an  order  of  the  President  on  July 
3 , 1 902 .  Some  of  them  were  afterwards  sent  to  the  Philippines 
and  to  Porto  Rico,  others  were  retained  in  the  War  Department 
to  complete  the  work  necessary  to  close  out  the  affairs  of  Cuba, 
and  a  few  were  employed  elsewhere. 

FOURTH-CLASS  POSTMASTERS 

In  addition  to  these  extensions,  there  was  a  marked  change  in 
the  policy  of  the  Post  Office  Department  regarding  the  tenure 
of  fourth-class  postmasters,  of  which  there  were  upwards  of 
seventy  thousand  in  the  country.  Heretofore  these  officers 
had  been  subject  to  change  every  four  years,  although  their 
tenure  was  indefinite  and  the  law  itself  seemed  to  contemplate 
that  they  should  hold  their  places  during  good  behavior. 
While  the  administration  did  not  promulgate  a  definite  rule  on 
this  subject,  the  policy  was  inaugurated  of  considering  all 
fourth-class  postmasters  as  subject  to  removal  for  cause  only. 
The  effect  of  this  policy  was  to  reduce  to  a  minimum  the 
changes  in  such  offices.  Strange  to  say,  the  new  sj^stem  met 
with  the  cooperation  of  members  of  Congress  as  it  relieved 
them  of  the  pressure  of  making  changes.  It  was  the  first 
step  leading  to  the  classification  of  the  fourth-class  postmasters, 
a  measure  which  was  begun  later  by  President  Roosevelt  near 


i68  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

the  close  of  his  administration  and  which  was  completed  under 
his  successor,  President  Taft. 

The  sum  total  of  these  extensions  of  the  competitive  system 
fairly  startled  me  by  its  size.  During  the  year  ending  June 
30,  1902,  there  were  12,894  appointments  to  competitive 
places.  This  was  then  the  high  water  mark  of  the  merit 
system,  but  during  the  year  ending  June  30,  1903,  39,646 
competitive  appointments  were  made — more  than  three  times 
as  many  as  the  year  before.  I  felt  during  that  year  that  we 
were  making  progress  but  I  had  never  dreamed  that  we  were 
doing  so  well  as  this. 

CHANGES  IN  THE  RULES 

But  even  more  important  than  the  extension  of  the  classified 
lists  were  the  changes  made  in  the  rules  for  the  purpose  of 
stopping  leaks  and  irregular  appointments  and  securing  the 
stricter  operation  of  the  law.  These  changes  enabled  the ' 
Commission  better  to  enforce  the  provisions  of  the  act  requir- 
ing the  apportionment  of  appointments  among  the  different 
States  on  the  basis  of  population;  gave  it  power  to  procure 
testimony  from  employees  in  its  investigations ;  to  require  the 
withholding  of  salaries  from  persons  holding  office  in  violation 
of  the  law;  to  stop  temporary  appointments  of  persons  outside 
the  eligible  lists  when  eligibles  were  available;  to  require  ex- 
aminations as  well  as  six  months*  active  service  for  transfers 
to  new  positions  from  those  who  had  entered  the  service  by 
mere  classification  of  the  offices  they  were  holding;  to  prevent 
reinstatements  for  the  purpose  of  immediate  transfer  to  other 
places;  to  limit  transfers  to  cases  when  the  duties  of  the  two 
positions  were  similar;  to  guard  against  reinstatements  after 
dismissal  for  cause,  and  against  the  assignment  of  laborers  to 
classified  work.  They  prevented  promotions  through  political 
influence;  restricted  partisan  activity  as  well  as  lobbying  in 
Congress  by  employees,  and  in  other  ways  strengthened  the 
competitive  system.^ 

'  The  apportionment  of  appointments  among  the  different  States  had 
been  considerably  affected  by  a  rule  requiring  the  Commission  in  all  cases 
of  transfer  to  waive  such  apportionment  upon  the  certificate  by  the  ap- 


REMOVALS  169 

REMOVALS 

Besides  the  foregoing  amendments  an  order  was  issued  giving 
the  proper  construction  to  the  rule  concerning  removals. 
President  McKinley  on  July  27,  1897,  had  promulgated  as  we 
have  seen  a  special  order  providing  that  no  removal  should  be 

pointing  officer  that  the  transfer  was  required  in  the  interests  of  good  ad- 
ministration. These  certificates  had  become  mere  formalities.  Most 
transfers  were  made  for  the  convenience  of  the  persons  who  sought  them 
and  were  requested  by  Congressmen  and  others  for  political  and  personal 
reasons  rather  than  the  good  of  the  service.  By  these  transfers  the  purpose 
of  securing  a  just  apportionment  was  defeated.  Accordingly  an  amend- 
ment to  the  rules  was  made  on  November  26,  1901,  requiring  that  the  rea- 
sons for  waiving  the  apportioimient  should  be  set  forth  in  detail  and  that 
the  certificate  should  be  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  Commission. 

The  Civil  Service  Law  did  not  give  to  the  Commission  the  power  to  sub- 
poena and  examine  witnesses  or  compel  the  production  of  written  evidence. 
In  regard  to  persons  outside  the  civil  service  this  defect  could  not  be  reme- 
died but  in  most  of  our  investigations  the  result  depended  largely  upon  the 
testimony  of  employees  of  the  government  and  in  these  cases  the  President 
had  the  right  to  require  them  to  appear  and  furnish  evidence.  Accordingly 
on  December  11, 1901,  the  President,  at  our  request,  promulgated  an  amend- 
ment to  the  rules  making  it  the  duty  of  every  officer  and  employee  to  give 
the  Commission  or  its  authorized  representatives  proper  and  competent 
information  and  testimony  in  regard  to  all  matters  inquired  of  and  to  sub- 
scribe such  testimony  and  make  oath  or  affirmation  to  the  same  before 
some  officer  authorized  to  administer  oaths.  After  one  employee  had  been 
removed  for  refusing  to  testify  vmder  this  rule  there  was  little  difficulty  in 
securing  evidence. 

The  Commission  was  frequently  without  a  remedy  for  appointments 
made  in  violation  of  law  since  it  could  only  investigate  and  report  the  illegal- 
ity to  the  head  of  the  proper  department  and  unless  he  took  action  the  man 
illegally  appointed  remained  in  the  service.  To  prevent  this  the  Commis- 
sion recommended  a  rule  providing  that  it  should  certify  such  illegal  ap- 
pointment to  the  head  of  the  department  and  then  if  the  person  imlawfully 
holding  office  was  not  dismissed  within  thirty  days  the  proper  disbursing 
and  auditing  officers  should  not  thereafter  pay  or  permit  to  be  paid  any  sal- 
ary or  wages  accruing  after  such  certificate  had  been  received  by  them. 
This  rule  was  adopted  December  11,  1 901,  and  after  its  adoption  these  il- 
legal appointments  ceased. 

The  rules  required  that  three  eligibles  must  be  furnished  to  an  appointing 
officer  before  he  could  be  required  to  make  a  selection,  otherwise  he  had 
the  right  to  make  a  temporary  appointment  tmtil  such  eligibles  were  fur- 
nished.   Under  this  system  an  unnecessary  muuber  of  temporary  appoint- 


170  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

made  from  the  competitive  service  except  for  just  cause  and 
for  reasons  given  in  writing,  and  the  persons  sought  to  be  re- 
moved were  to  have  notice  and  be  furnished  with  a  copy  of 
such  reasons  and  allowed  a  reasonable  time  for  personally- 
answering  the  same  in  writing.  This  rule  was  adopted  for  the 
purpose  of  putting  an  end  to  removals  upon  secret  charges  and 

ments  was  made  of  persons  outside  of  eligible  lists,  for  personal  or  political 
reasons,  and  many  were  discouraged  from  entering  the  examinations.  We 
therefore  recommended  an  amendment  which  was  made  by  the  President 
on  December  ii,  1901,  providing  that  when  there  were  one  or  two  eligibles 
on  the  list  the  appointing  officer  might  make  a  permanent  appointment 
therefrom,  but  if  he  elected  not  to  do  so,  he  must  select  one  of  them  for 
temporary  appointment  unless  special  reasons  were  given  and  approved  by 
the  Commission  why  such  selection  should  not  be  made. 

But  while  in  these  cases  temporary  appointments  from  the  outside  had 
been  unnecessarily  made,  in  other  cases  where  they  were  necessary  or  de- 
sirable they  were  not  permitted  by  the  rules.  This  was  true  in  the  case  of 
job  employments,  temporary  in  character.  It  was  ofttimes  undesirable 
and  even  impossible  to  select  men  for  such  employment  from  the  eligible 
lists,  bringing  them  perhaps  from  distant  places  and  sometimes  causing 
them  to  lose  the  opportunity  for  permanent  employment.  Therefore  on 
January  24,  1902,  a  rule  was  adopted  on  our  recommendation,  authorizing 
such  temporary  appointments  for  three  months  if  approved  by  the  Com- 
mission, which,  if  the  work  was  not  completed,  might  be  extended  three 
months  longer,  but  must  then  cease.  We  recognized  that  this  amendment 
was  liable  to  abuse  if  not  carefully  watched  and  we  did  not  permit  it  to 
apply  to  employments  of  a  clerical  nature  even  though  they  were  temporary, 
if  eligibles  could  be  secured. 

Other  important  amendments  were  made  relating  to  transfers.  Before 
December  11  1 901,  an  employee  might  be  transferred  no  matter  how  short  a 
time  he  had  been  in  the  service.  Men  were  appointed  without  examination 
to  places  in  the  small  post  offices  just  before  the  classification  of  these  offices 
and  then  immediately  after  classification  transferred  to  other  parts  of  the 
competitive  service,  thus  evading  examination.  But  on  that  day  an  amend- 
ment was  adopted  that  no  person  should  be  transferred  who  had  not 
actually  served  for  six  months  in  some  competitive  position  in  the  office  in 
which  he  became  classified. 

Amendments  were  adopted  restricting  transfers  in  other  cases.  Later, 
on  March  13,  1902,  it  was  provided  that  none  should  be  made 
until  the  person  to  be  transferred  had  passed  the  examination  pre- 
scribed for  original  entrance  to  the  position  to  which  the  transfer  was 
proposed. 

Persons  who  had  formerly  been  in  the  service  sought  reinstatement  not 


REMOVALS  171 

the  beneficent  effect  of  the  order  was  generally  recognized. 
At  the  same  time  misunderstandings  arose  in  regard  to  its 
proper  construction.  It  was  claimed  by  some  that  "just 
cause  "meant  that  some  willful  act  of  misconduct  must  have 
been  committed.  But  it  was  evident  that  persons  ought  some- 
times to  be  removed  when  they  were  not  willfully  at  fault — in 

for  the  purpose  of  going  back  to  the  position  they  had  formerly  held  but  in 
order  to  be  transferred  to  some  other  place. 

The  Commission  believed  that  unless  the  officer  under  whom  a  person  was 
formerly  employed  was  willing  to  accept  his  services  again  he  should  not  be 
reinstated.  Therefore  on  March  13,  1902,  a  rule  was  adopted  forbidding 
all  transfers  of  reinstated  persons  until  they  had  served  six  months  in  the 
department  or  office  in  which  they  were  reinstated. 

The  rules  had  been  so  relaxed  that  they  permitted  transfers  from  one 
position  to  another  without  regard  to  the  similarity  of  duties  in  the  two 
places  and  many  were  thus  given  positions  for  which  there  was  nothing  to 
show  that  they  were  qualified.  These  transfers  seriously  interfered  with 
promotion  regulations  and  were  contrary  to  the  wholesome  principle  that 
persons  should  rise  in  the  service  according  to  their  demonstrated  training 
and  fitness ;  Accordingly  an  amendment  was  made  on  January  23,  1902, 
that  no  transfer  should  be  made  to  any  position  if  there  was  not  required 
therein  the  performance  of  the  same  class  of  work  as  in  the  position  from 
which  transfer  was  proposed. 

Prior  to  this  a  person  dismissed  on  charges  of  delinquency  or  misconduct 
might  be  reinstated  at  any  time  provided  the  appointing  officer  certified  that 
he  had  thoroughly  investigated  the  case  and  had  found  that  the  charges 
were  not  true.  The  purpose  of  this  rule  was  to  remedy  personal  wrongs, 
but  its  practical  operation  was  injurious.  Most  of  those  reinstated  had 
been  out  of  the  service  from  five  to  fifteen  years.  They  had  been  separated 
when  it  was  customary  to  make  removals  for  political  reasons  and  when 
records  of  the  charges  were  seldom  kept;  hence  only  ex-parte  evidence  could 
be  obtained  and  the  reinstatements  were  often  due  to  political  influences. 
Where  an  appointing  officer  had  dismissed  men,  ostensibly  upon  charges 
but  really  for  political  reasons,  and  his  successor  dismissed  the  men  ap- 
pointed in  their  places  and  reinstated  those  discharged,  it  was  evident  that 
at  some  future  time  a  new  appointing  officer  might  do  the  same  thing  and 
thus  a  rotation  in  office  would  be  established.  Upon  the  recommendation 
of  the  Commission  this  provision  was  stricken  out  on  January  23,  1902. 

The  rule  that  no  laborer  should  be  assigned  to  work  of  the  same  grade 
as  that  performed  by  classified  employees  had  been  ineffective  because 
appointing  officers  decided  for  themselves  that  the  work  of  a  particular  posi- 
tion was  not  of  this  grade  and  they  accordingly  filled  the  position  as  though 
xp  were  unclassified  and  then  either  failed  to  report  the  appointment  or  else 


172  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

cases  for  instance  where  they  had  become  disqualified  through 
physical  or  mental  disability  or  in  cases  where  their  services 
were  no  longer  required. 

It  was  further  believed  by  many  that  the  rule  provided 
substantially  for  a  trial,  for  the  taking  of  testimony,  and  for 
proceedings  similar  to  those  in  a  court  of  law.  To  do  this  would 
not  only  involve  enormous  labor  but  would  give  a  permanency 
of  tenure  quite  inconsistent  with  the  efficiency  of  the  service. 
Yet  so  widespread  was  this  misapprehension  that  appointing 
officers  often  hesitated  to  remove  subordinates  who  had  become 
useless  or  who  had  lost  the  confidence  of  their  superiors  because 
specific  acts  of  misconduct  could  not  be  established  by  sufficient 
evidence  to  authorize  dismissal.  The  President,  therefore, 
upon  the  recommendation  of  the  Commission,  issued  on  May 

reported  it  as  an  appointment  to  an  unclassified  position.  To  remedy 
this  it  was  provided  that  every  appointing  officer  should  furnish  to 
the  Commission  a  list  of  all  employees  and  positions  which  had  been 
treated  as  below  classification  with  the  duties  of  each  position  stated 
in  detail.  The  Commission  then  treated  as  classified  all  grades  where 
the  duties  required  either  special  qualifications  or  a  knowledge  of  reading 
and  writing. 

We  found  that  about  eight  hundred  persons  appointed  without  examina- 
tion as  mere  laborers  had  been  assigned  to  classified  duties.  We  did  not 
seek  at  once  either  to  classify  or  remove  these  employees  but  took  measures 
to  prevent  appointments  of  this  sort  in  the  future.  To  classify  them  would 
have  been  to  confirm  the  illegality  of  their  employment  and  to  make  them 
eligible  for  promotion,  which,  backed  as  they  were  in  almost  every  instance 
by  political  patrons,  might  injure  those  who  were  in  the  classified  service  in  a 
legitimate  way.  At  the  same  time  it  was  recognized  that  the  sudden  dis- 
missal of  a  large  number  of  laborers  doing  classified  work  would  be  disas- 
trous and  would  raise  an  antagonism  in  Congress,  in  the  Departments,  and 
with  the  public,  which  would  be  quite  disproportionate  to  the  good  results 
obtained.  We  believed  that  after  a  while  many  of  these  employees,  finding 
promotion  impossible,  would  give  up  their  places  or  else  secure  entrance  into 
the  classified  service  through  regular  examinations  and  that  possibly  the 
remnant  might  be  classified  without  serious  injury. 

This  was  afterwards  done  by  President  Roosevelt  in  an  order  dated 
January  12,  1905,  after  the  labor  registration  system  had  been  further  de- 
veloped and  registries  established.  This  order  included  some  640  persons. 
He  directed,  however,  March  11,  1905,  that  laborers  classified  as  clerks 
should  not  receive  further  increase  of  compensation  without  competitive 
examination. 


REMOVALS  173 

29,  1902,  an  order  declaring  that  the  term  "just  cause"  was 
intended  to  mean  any  cause  (other  than  one  merely  political 
or  religious)  which  would  promote  the  efficiency  of  the  service 
and  that  nothing  contained  in  the  rules  should  be  so  construed 
as  to  require  the  examination  of  witnesses  or  any  trial  or  hear- 
ing except  in  the  discretion  of  the  officer  making  the  removal. 
The  reason,however,  had  to  be  stated  with  sufficient  definiteness 
to  enable  the  employee  to  understand  the  exact  cause  for  which 
his  removal  was  sought  and  to  make  a  proper  answer.  A  mere 
general  statement  of  inefficiency,  misconduct,  negligence,  or 
inattention  to  duty  wotdd  not  be  sufficient. 

After  this  declaration  few  cases  of  improper  removals  came 
to  our  attention.  A  far  greater  number  of  employees  who 
should  have  been  removed  were  retained  in  the  service  than 
the  number  of  those  removed  who  ought  to  have  been  retained. 
Appointing  officers  were  very  reluctant  to  make  removals 
which  involved  hardship. 

There  were  indeed  some  complaints  of  improper  removals. 
For  instance,  Miss  Rebecca  Taylor  was  dismissed  from  the  War 
Department  because  she  had  made  and  published  pungent 
and  bitter  criticisms  of  the  conduct  of  that  department  and 
of  the  administration.  This  was  an  impropriety  which  cer- 
tainly justified  dismissal.  It  is  quite  evident  that  the  business 
of  no  department  can  be  efficiently  conducted  if  those  employed 
in  doing  the  work  are  allowed  to  attack  the  conduct  of  their 
superiors  in  the  newspapers.  But  a  great  uproar  was  made  on 
account  of  the  pretended  infringement  of  personal  liberty,  and 
right  of  free  speech  and  of  the  press,  and  there  was  much  talk 
that  such  a  removal  was  in  violation  of  the  civil  service  law 
itself.  The  criticism  had  no  foundation  but  it  had  its  cheering 
side.  It  was  delightful  to  find  how  many  persons  who  had 
never  before  cared  for  the  competitive  system  were  now  filled 
with  such  eagerness  for  the  enforcement  of  the  law. 

The  Taylor  case  was  not  the  only  one  in  which  complaints 
were  made.  Whenever  some  employee  who  had  been  violat- 
ing his  duty  found  himself  in  danger  of  dismissal  he  would  send 
his  attorney  to  the  Commission  and  demand  all  sorts  of  things. 
He  would  want  to  know  whether  the  civil  service  law  meant 


174  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

anything,  would  insist  that  if  he  could  be  dismissed  the  whole 
competitive  system  would  be  destroyed  and  the  overthrow  of 
all  free  institutions  was  at  hand.  This  became  quite  an  old 
story  and  the  worse  the  case  the  more  strenuous  was  the  man 
for  the  maintenance  of  what  he  called  his  rights.  But  cases 
of  improper  removals  were  extremely  rare.' 

PROMOTIONS 

Far  greater  were  the  evils  in  regard  to  promotions.  Al- 
though a  man's  entrance  into  the  classified  service  might 
depend  upon  competitive  tests,  yet  as  soon  as  he  was  in,  the 
political  "pull"  was  as  strong  as  ever  and  his  promotion  fre- 
quently depended  on  patronage.  Members  of  Congress  and 
others  prominent  in  political  life  would  go  to  heads  of  depart- 
ments and  bureaus  and  ask  the  promotion  of  personal  or  po- 
litical favorites.  These  requests  were  frequently  complied 
with  and  the  undeserving  were  advanced  over  the  heads  of 
those  who  had  fairly  earned  promotion,  thus  demoralizing 

» At  a  later  period  (on  Nov.  17,  1903)  President  Roosevelt  changed  the 
removal  rule  so  as  to  provide  that  when  the  President  or  head  of  any  depart- 
ment was  satisfied  that  an  officer  or  employee  was  inefficient  or  incapaci- 
tated his  removal  might  be  made  without  notice  but  the  cause  should  be 
stated  in  writing  and  filed.  Where  misconduct  was  committed  in  the  view 
or  presence  of  the  President  or  head  of  department,  the  removal  might  be 
made  summarily  and  no  statement  filed.  The  department  head  might, 
however,  in  his  discretion,  require  a  statement  of  reasons  and  a  reasonable 
time  for  answering  them. 

This  modification  was  brought  about  because  the  President  personally 
saw  what  he  considered  an  act  of  misconduct  on  the  streets  of  Washington 
and  removed  the  employee  at  once.  It  cannot  be  said,  however,  that  the 
change  was  an  improvement.  There  was  no  great  hardship  in  requiring 
the  removing  officer  to  state  his  reasons  and  give  the  employee  a  chance  to 
be  heard  and  by  this  means  injustice  was  sometimes  prevented. 

Accordingly  President  Taft  on  Feb.  8,  19 12,  restored  the  rule  substan- 
tially to  its  former  shape. 

On  August  24th  of  that  year  Congress  enacted  into  law  the  rule  which 
already  existed  but  this  had  the  disadvantage  of  giving  the  courts  jurisdic- 
tion to  determine  whether  the  proper  procedure  was  followed  and  the  ex- 
perience of  various  States  and  cities  had  shown  that  judicial  interference 
with  administrative  acts  was  generally  imdesirable. 


PROMOTIONS  175 

the  service  and  encouraging  men  to  seek  political  influence. 
A  very  proper  restriction  however  was  made  in  a  rule  adopted 
by  the  President  on  July  3,  1902,  which  provided  that  no 
recommendation  for  promotion  should  be  considered  except 
when  made  by  the  officer  under  whose  supervision  the  employee 
was  serving,  and  such  recommendation  by  any  other  person 
with  the  knowledge  and  consent  of  the  employee  should  be 
sufficient  cause  for  debarring  him  from  the  promotion,  and  a 
repetition  of  the  offence,  sufficient  cause  for  removing  him 
from  the  service.  This  order  was  aimed  particularly  at  the 
interference  of  Congressmen. 

The  Commission  endeavored  for  a  long  time  but  without 
success  to  devise  some  general  promotion  regulations.  The 
problem  was  a  difficult  one.  If  promotions  were  to  depend 
upon  records  of  efficiency  it  had  to  be  remembered  that  these 
records  were  often  very  inadequately  kept  and  gave  rise  to 
much  injustice.  The  heads  of  many  bureaus  and  divisions  did 
not  want  to  discriminate  among  their  subordinates  and  some 
marked  all  their  employees  at  the  highest  figure.  In  other 
offices  the  subordinates  were  all  marked  alike  but  with  a  lower 
figure  so  that  injustice  was  done  to  the  employees  of  one  office 
when  compared  with  those  of  another  and  there  was  no  author- 
ity to  equalize  these  records. 

Before  a  general  and  imiform  system  of  promotion  cotild  be 
adopted  the  entire  service  would  have  to  be  reclassified  so 
that  the  different  grades  as  well  as  the  work  of  persons  em- 
ployed within  each  special  grade  could  be  fairly  and  justly 
compared. 

The  question  of  promotion  examinations  was  also  considered. 
These  examinations  could  not  well  test  the  executive  or  ad- 
ministrative qualifications  required  in  the  position  for  which  the 
examination  was  taken  but  were  useful  in  determining  general 
intelligence  as  well  as  a  knowledge  of  the  duties  of  the  higher 
position.  We  strongly  urged  that  Congress  should  provide 
for  the  reclassification  of  the  entire  departmental  service  and 
submitted  suggestions,  but  no  action  was  taken  and  we  felt 
that  until  this  was  done  we  were  not  justified  in  prescribing  a 
general  plan,  but  we  urged  instead  that  each  department  should 


176  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

adopt,  in  cooperation  with  the  Commission,  a  system  of  pro- 
motions (including  examinations  where  feasible)  which  would 
best  meet  the  conditions  within  that  department.*^ 

POLITICAL  ACTIVITY 

Another  matter  in  which  the  civil  service  rules  were  strength- 
ened was  by  a  clearer  definition  of  the  offence  of  political  activ- 
ity and  more  precise  provisions  restricting  it.^ 

I  President  Cleveland  on  July  14,  1886,  had  issued  an  executive  order  in 
which  he  said: 

"The  influence  of  federal  officeholders  should  not  be  felt  in  the  manipu- 
lation of  political  primary  meetings  and  nominating  conventions.  The 
use  by  these  officials  of  their  positions  to  compass  their  selection  as  delegates 
to  political  conventions  is  indecent  and  unfair;  and  proper  regard  for  the 
proprieties  and  requirements  of  official  place  will  also  prevent  their  assum- 
ing the  active  conduct  of  political  campaigns. 

"Individual  interest  and  activity  in  political  affairs  are  by  no  means 
condemned.  Officeholders  are  neither  disfranchised  nor  forbidden  the 
exercise  of  political  privileges;  but  their  privileges  are  not  enlarged  nor  is 
their  duty  to  party  increased  to  pernicious  activity  by  officeholding. " 

This  order  was  issued  at  a  time  when  it  had  been  so  long  the  practice  for 
federal  officeholders  to  take  a  leading  part  in  politics  that  it  could  not  be 
impartially  enforced.  Men  were  removed  for  "pernicious  activity"  when 
they  belonged  to  the  opposite  party  while  if  they  belonged  to  the  party  in 
power  they  were  not  disturbed.  By  attempting  to  apply  the  rule  equally 
to  classified  and  unclassified  positions  it  was  found  impracticable  to  give 
general  effect  to  it  at  all. 

The  postal  regulations  had  contained  a  clause  providing  that  office- 
holders should  not  offend  by  obtrusive  partisanship  nor  assume  the  active 
conduct  of  political  campaigns.  On  April  i,  1902,  new  postal  regulations 
were  issued  in  which  this  clause  was  left  out.  We  called  the  attention  of 
the  President  to  this  omission  and  quoted  from  a  previous  report  prepared 
by  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself  on  this  subject  when  he  was  Commissioner.  On 
Jime  13,  1902,  the  President  replied: 

"As  the  greater  includes  the  less,  and  as  the  executive  order  of  President 
Cleveland  of  July  14, 1886,  is  still  in  force,  I  hardly  think  it  will  be  necessary 
again  to  change  the  postal  regulations. 

"The  trouble,  of  course,  comes  in  the  interpretation  of  this  executive 
order  of  President  Cleveland.  After  sixteen  years'  experience  it  has  been 
found  impossible  to  formulate  in  precise  language  any  general  construction 
which  shall  not  work  either  absurdity  or  injustice.  For  instance,  it  is 
obviously  imwise  to  apply  the  same  rule  to  the  head  of  a  big  city  federal 


LOBBYING  BY  EMPLOYEES  177 

LOBBYING  BY   EMPLOYEES 

There  was  still  another  kind  of  influence  which  about  this 
time  began  to  be  exerted  by  officials  in  the  classified  service, 
particularly  in  the  Post  Office  Department.  Organizations 
had  been  established  among  letter-carriers,  clerks,  and  others 
for  the  purpose  of  bettering  their  own  conditions,  securing 
higher  salaries,  civil  service  pensions,  and  other  desirable 
things.  The  rural  free  delivery  carriers  already  had  a  lobby 
working  for  an  increase  of  pay  and  the  general  free  delivery 
carriers  and  postal  clerks  were  also  soliciting  legislation  which 
would  improve  their  condition. 

The  danger  of  such  movements  was  apparent.  If  public 
employees  were  permitted  to  combine  and  impose  their  will 
upon  members  of  Congress  in  favor  of  their  special  interests 
they  might  secure  legislation  which  was  opposed  to  the  pub- 
lic welfare.     Accordingly,  on  January  31,  1902,  the  President 


office,  who  may  by  his  actions  coerce  hundreds  of  employees,  as  to  a  fourth- 
class  postmaster  in  a  small  village,  who  has  no  employees  to  coerce  and  who 
simply  wishes  to  continue  to  act  with  reference  to  his  neighbors  as  he  al- 
ways has  acted. 

"As  Civil  Service  Commissioner  under  Presidents  Harrison  and  Cleve- 
land I  found  it  so  impossible  satisfactorily  to  formulate  and  decide  upon 
questions  involved  in  these  matters  of  so-called  pernicious  activity  that  in 
the  Eleventh  Report  of  the  Commission  I  personally  drew  up  the  paragraph 
which  you  quote.  This  paragraph  was  drawn  with  a  view  of  making  a  sharp 
line  between  the  activity  allowed  to  public  servants  within  the  classified 
service  and  those  without  the  classified  service.  The  latter  under  our  system 
are,  as  a  rule,  chosen  largely  with  reference  to  political  considerations  and, 
as  a  rule,  are  and  expect  to  be  changed  with  the  change  of  parties.  In  the 
classified  service,  however,  the  choice  is  made  without  reference  to  political 
considerations  and  the  tenure  of  office  is  unaffected  by  the  change  of  parties. 
Under  these  circimistances  it  is  obvious  that  different  standpoints  of  con- 
duct apply  to  the  two  cases.  In  consideration  of  fixity  of  tenure  and  of 
appointment  in  no  way  due  to  political  considerations,  the  man  in  the 
classified  service,  while  retaining  his  right  to  vote  as  he  pleases  and  to 
express  privately  his  opinions  on  all  political  subjects,  'should  not  take  any 
active  part  in  political  management  or  in  political  campaigns,  for  precisely 
the  same  reasons  that  a  judge,  an  army  officer,  a  regular  soldier,  or  a  police- 
man is  debarred  from  taking  such  active  part. '  This  of  course,  applies  even 
more  strongly  to  any  conduct  on  the  part  of  such  employee  so  prejudicial 


178  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

issued  an  order  that  all  employees  serving  in  any  of  the  Execu- 
tive Departments  were  forbidden  under  penalty  of  dismissal  to 
solicit,  either  individually  or  through  associations,  an  increase 
of  pay  or  to  attempt  to  influence  in  their  own  interests  any 
legislation  whatever,  save  through  the  heads  of  the  depart- 
ments under  which  they  served. 

This  order  aroused  much  indignation  among  the  employees 
affected,  and  some  members  of  Congress,  anxious  to  curry  favor 
with  these  organizations  (which  were  becoming  powerful  in 
their  respective  districts),  criticized  it  sharply. 

As  the  order  of  the  President  had  been  prepared  in  the  office 
of  the  Commission  I  defended  it  in  an  interview  saying  that  it 
was  directed  against  an  evil  which  had  led  in  some  cases  to  the 
looting  of  the  Treasury  at  the  solicitation  of  employees.  The 
people  in  the  public  service  had  shorter  hoiu-s  than  in  private 
employment;  they  were,  in  the  lower  grades  at  least,  better 

to  good  discipline  as  is  implied  in  a  public  attack  on  his  or  her  superior 
officers  or  other  conduct  liable  to  cause  scandal. 

"It  seemed  to  me  at  the  time,  and  I  still  think  that  the  line  thus  drawn 
was  wise  and  proper.  After  my  experience  under  two  Presidents — one  of 
my  own  political  faith  and  one  not — I  had  become  convinced  that  it  was 
imdesirable  and  impossible  to  lay  down  a  rule  for  public  officers  not  in  the 
classified  service  which  should  limit  their  political  activity  as  strictly  as  we 
could  rightly  and  properly  limit  the  activity  of  those  in  whose  choice  and 
retention  the  element  of  political  considerations  did  not  enter;  and  after- 
wards I  became  convinced  that  in  its  actual  construction,  if  there  was  any 
pretense  of  applying  it  impartially,  it  inevitably  worked  unevenly  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  inevitably  produced  an  impression  of  hypocrisy  in  those  who 
asserted  that  it  worked  evenly.  Officeholders  must  not  use  their 
offices  to  control  political  movements,  must  not  neglect  their  public 
duties,  must  not  cause  public  scandal  by  their  activity;  but  outside 
of  the  classified  service  the  effort  to  go  further  than  this  had  failed  so  sig- 
nally at  the  time  when  the  Eleventh  Report,  which  you  have  quoted,  was 
written,  and  its  unwisdom  had  been  so  thoroughly  demonstrated,  that  I  felt 
it  necessary  to  try  to  draw  the  distinction  therein  indicated. " 

This  letter  was  generally  published  and  the  principles  it  announced  be- 
came the  rule  of  action  for  the  different  departments. 

Our  Commission  believed  that  the  standards  here  adopted  were  the  high- 
est which  were  practicable  at  that  time  and  that  in  enforcing  them  perform- 
ance might  always  keep  pace  with  promise,  which  would  not  be  true  if  a 
more  exacting  standard  were  adopted* 


LOBBYING  BY  EMPLOYEES  179 

paid,  yet  many  were  continually  importuning  Congressmen  for 
laws  granting  increase  of  salaries,  additional  leaves  of  absence, 
still  shorter  hours,  and  other  favors  benefiting  themselves  at  the 
expense  of  the  public.  Sometimes  they  threatened  to  defeat 
a  Congressman  for  reelection  if  he  would  not  accede  to  their 
demands.  It  certainly  would  be  against  good  administration 
in  the  army  and  navy  if  those  in  the  service  should  be  allowed 
to  lobby  in  their  own  behalf.  What  would  be  thought  of  an 
association  of  captains,  lieutenants,  and  enlisted  men  engaged 
in  importuning  Congressmen  for  increase  of  pay?  But  this 
would  be  no  more  a  violation  of  good  discipline  than  in  the 
civil  service.  There  was  nothing  in  the  President's  order 
which  prevented  employees  from  presenting  their  claims 
through  the  heads  of  the  departments  under  which  they  served 
and  it  would  be  subversive  of  all  order  that  they  should  go 
outside  and  endeavor  to  secure  favorable  action  in  opposition 
to  these  departments. 

I  was  asked  what  I  thought  of  the  claim  that  the  order  was 
a  violation  of  the  constitutional  right  of  ^petition,  and  I  an- 
swered : 

I  think  this  is  about  as  sensible  as  to  claim  that  it  was  violating  the  right 
of  free  speech  if  a  man  in  the  service  were  to  be  dismissed  because  he  had 
called  his  superior  officer  a  fool  or  a  scoundrel.  Of  course,  all  Americans 
have  a  right  to  assemble  and  petition  for  a  redress  of  grievances,  but  they 
have  no  inalienable  right  to  hold  public  office  and  while  they  hold  such  office 
they  have  no  right  to  violate  the  rules  of  good  discipline.  I  see  that  one  of 
the  Democratic  members  of  Congress  speaks  of  this  as  an  infamous  order 
and  calls  it  a  ukase,  saying  that  the  President  has  given  material  for  the 
campaign  which  will  largely  aid  this  fall  in  electing  a  Democratic  House. 
If  this  be  representative  of  Democratic  sentiment  I  must  congratulate  the 
party  on  having  discovered  a  superb  foimdation  for  future  success.  In 
these  days  when  the  silver  plank  is  a  little  rickety,  when  even  the  project 
of  consigning  the  Philippines  to  the  devil  is  not  without  its  difficulties,  our 
Democratic  friends  have  now  found  a  secure  and  immutable  foundation  for 
political  success  in  the  sacred  right  of  officeholders  to  raid  the  Treasury  for 
their  own  benefit.  I  hope  these  gentlemen  will  not  abandon  the  ground  so 
skillfully  chosen.  '■ 

^  The  President's  order  did  something  in  restricting  open  lobbjdng  by 
officeholders  but  the  evil  still  remained  a  serious  one.  Later,  on  April  8, 
19 1 2,  President  Taft  superseded  this  order  and  provided  instead  that  com- 


i8o  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

CODIFICATION    OF   THE   RULES 

The  rules  adopted  by  the  Civil  Service  Commission  had 
received  so  many  amendments  at  different  times  that  they 
constituted  a  rather  confused  mass  of  badly  arranged  provi- 
sions and  we  determined  to  re-codify  the  whole.  This  had 
been  attempted  by  previous  Commissioners  but  they  had  found 
so  many  points  upon  which  they  could  not  agree  that  it  was 
said  their  sessions  on  the  subject  were  like  the  meetings  of  a 
debating  club;  nothing  was  done  and  the  effort  was  abandoned. 

In  our  case,  however,  the  utmost  harmony  prevailed,  and 
we  had  no  difficulty  in  framing,  with  the  valuable  assistance  of 
Mr.  Doyle,  our  secretary,  a  new  set  of  rules,  greatly  condensed 
and  simplified,  which  embodied  substantially  all  the  provisions 
of  the  former  rules  and  the  amendments  with  a  few  trifling 
changes.  This  new  "Justinian  Code  "  as  we  called  it  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  heads  of  the  various  departments  and  approved 
by  them  and  was  promulgated  by  the  President  in  April,  1903. 
It  remained  in  force  for  many  years  with  but  few  alterations. 

SPECIAL  EXCEPTIONS 

Under  Section  2  of  the  Civil  Service  Act  the  President  was 
authorized  to  make  special  exceptions  and  to  appoint  particu- 

mimications  to  Congress  by  employees  should  be  transmitted  through  the 
heads  of  departments  who  should  forward  them  without  delay  with  such 
comments  as  they  deemed  requisite.  The  Post  Office  Appropriation  Act, 
approved  August  24th  of  the  same  year,  allowed  postal  employees  to  organ- 
ize and  to  affilia;te  with  outside  organizations  which  did  not  impose  an 
obligation  to  strike  and  the  act  declared  that  their  right  either  individually 
or  collectively  to  petition  or  furnish  information  to  Congress  should  not  be 
denied  or  interfered  with. 

The  dangers  incident  to  such  legislation  would  be  particularly  great  in 
time  of  war,  when  the  entire  postal  service  or  that  of  the  War  Department 
or  other  vital  branches  of  the  government  might  be  paralyzed  by  the  com- 
bined action  of  the  employees. 

I  remember  that  some  years  after  this  at  an  annual  meeting  of  the  Na- 
tional Civil  Service  Reform  League  in  Chicago,  a  member  of  one  of  these 
organizations  denounced  Mr.  Roosevelt  as  "the  greatest  enemy  civil  ser- 
vice reform  ever  had. "  It  was  not  hard  to  divine  the  particular  act  which 
lay  at  the  foundation  of  such  a  judgment. 


SPECIAL  EXCEPTIONS  i8i 

lar  individuals  or  provide  for  the  appointment  of  particular 
classes  without  examination. 

One  of  the  earliest  questions  which  came  up  for  consideration 
after  I  became  Commissioner  was  whether  it  was  better  to 
except  the  place  or  the  individual.  Early  in  November,  1901, 
we  were  asked  to  except  from  competitive  examination  a 
laborer  with  the  duties  of  coachman  in  the  office  of  the  Assist- 
ant Secretary  of  the  Navy.  This  place  had  been  included  in 
the  competitive  service  by  the  general  blanket  order  of  Presi- 
dent Cleveland  some  years  before.  I  confess  it  seemed  to  me 
rather  absurd  to  require  a  competitive  examination  for  such  a 
place.  Some  time  before  when  the  Commission  had  certified 
for  the  position  of  a  coachman  the  three  highest  names  on  a 
skilled  labor  register  of  persons  who  had  had  experience  in  that 
kind  of  work,  it  turned  out  that  one  of  the  men  had  been  driv- 
ing a  milk-wagon,  the  second  a  hearse,  and  the  third  a  street- 
car. We  might  indeed  have  instituted  a  special  test  for  this 
particular  place  and  have  added  to  the  gayety  of  Washington 
by  a  competitive  trot  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  but  this 
alternative  did  not  seem  desirable.  We  thought  we  ought  to 
let  the  secretary  appoint  his  own  coachman  and  the  question 
was  whether  it  was  better  to  except  the  particular  man  whom 
the  secretary  desired  to  appoint  or  to  except  in  general  the 
position  of  coachman.  I  thought  we  should  except  the  position 
generally,  but  Mr.  Proctor,  the  President  of  the  Commission, 
who  had  had  much  more  experience,  said  to  me,  "If  we  except 
coachmen  in  general  we  shall  find  that  every  place  filled  by  any 
man  who  ever  drives  a  horse  will  at  once  become  an  excepted 
place.  Coachmen  will  multiply  like  gooseberries  and  instead 
of  letting  down  the  rules  in  one  case  you  will  let  them  down  in 
fifty.  Let  us  just  except  this  one  man  and  have  it  stop  right 
here."  He  convinced  me.  We  accordingly  recommended  to 
the  President  that  exceptions  should  be  made  of  particular 
individuals  and  not  of  general  classes  of  places.  When  each 
man's  name  had  to  be  published,  with  the  reasons  for  the 
exception,  thus  exposing  to  criticism  each  special  case  in  its 
most  obnoxious  form,  it  was  quite  certain  that  the  number  of 
such  exceptions  would  never  grow  so  fast  as  it  would  if  they 


i82  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

could  be  made  wholesale  by  a  single  stroke  of  the  pen,  and 
where  it  could  only  be  ascertained  after  an  investigation  how 
many  had  got  in  by  each  exception.  During  the  year  ending 
June  30,  1902,  there  were  only  twenty  of  these  special  excep- 
tions, in  the  following  year  there  were  twenty-five.  In  most 
of  these  cases  they  were  necessary  or  desirable  though  there 
were  a  few  dictated  by  considerations  of  benevolence;  an 
appointment,  for  instance,  of  a  man  who  had  become  injured 
while  in  the  service,  to  a  position  which  he  was  able  to  fill  but 
to  which  he  would  not  otherwise  have  been  eligible.  I  do  not 
remember  a  single  case  where  the  appointment  was  made  for 
political  reasons. 

Yet  criticism  came  in  abundance.  This  thing  was  repre- 
sented as  a  complete  overthrow  of  the  competitive  principle. 
It  was  stated  that  President  Roosevelt  had  made  a  larger  num- 
ber of  irregular  appointments  than  any  of  his  predecessors, 
while  the  fact  was  that  during  his  whole  first  term  there  were 
some  sixty  cases  of  such  suspensions  of  the  rules  and  only 
thirty-three  of  these  weTe  persons  who  were  allowed  to  enter 
the  service  without  examination.  This  was  less  than  one 
twentieth  of  one  per  cent  of  the  appointments.  They  included 
such  exceptions  as  that  of  the  steward  in  the  White  House, 
two  special  agents  in  the  Bureau  of  Corporations,  the  Super- 
intendent of  the  Government  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  and 
other  cases  where,  on  account  of  special  reasons,  the  applica- 
tion of  the  rules  was  considered  impracticable,  unwise,  unjust, 
or  unnecessary. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League 
held  in  Washington  in  1904,  after  I  had  ceased  to  be  Commis- 
sioner, there  were  serious  criticisms  made  of  this  method  of 
excepting  special  individuals.  Mr.  Schurz  regarded  it  "as  a 
very  dangerous  venture  in  its  ulterior  consequences,  weakening 
popular  confidence  and  increasing  pressure  for  further  excep- 
tions." Others  insisted  that  if  exceptions  were  made  it  should 
be  done  in  accordance  with  fixed  rules;  that  this  had  been  the 
former  practice;  that  the  civil  service  system  could  not  be 
safely  administered  in  any  other  way,  and  that  the  logical  con- 
sequences of  a  continuance  of  special  exceptions  would  be  the 


SPECIAL  EXCEPTIONS  183 

restoration  of  the  spoils  system.  There  was  held  up  to  us  for 
emulation  the  example  of  a  certain  judge  who  had  declared 
that  it  was  not  his  duty  to  administer  justice  but  only  the 
law. 

As  I  was  largely  responsible  for  the  new  practice,  I  felt  bound 
to  defend  it.  I  observed  in  reply  that  the  example  of  the  judge 
was  hardly  applicable  to  executive  action  and  that  I  doubted 
whether  it  was  the  highest  ideal  even  for  judicial  action.  It 
reminded  me  of  the  definition  given  when  I  was  examined  for 
admission  to  the  bar.  The  examiners  asked  one  of  the  candi- 
dates the  question  "What  is  a  Court  ? "  and  the  candidate  in  his 
confusion  parodied  Blackstone's  definition  and  said,  "It  is  a 
place  where  injustice  is  judiciously  administered."  I  thought 
we  had  better  have  a  President  to  whom  considerations  of 
justice  as  well  as  law  were  not  wholly  alien.  Even  in  the 
development  of  the  law,  those  were  not  the  worst  judges  by 
whose  judicial  discretion  that  great  system  of  equity  juris- 
prudence was  developed  out  of  the  special  cases  "where  the 
law  by  reason  of  its  universality  was  deficient."  But  whether 
that  were  a  good  thing  for  a  judge  or  not,  the  executive  office 
was  different.  Our  constitution  placed  in  the  hands  of  our 
President  the  pardoning  power,  which  was  wholly  discretionary. 
Our  laws  provided  for  the  punishment  of  crime.  They  were 
universal  but  would  it  be  said  that  the  pardoning  power  (even 
though  it  might  sometimes  be  abused)  should  be  wholly  taken 
away  from  our  executive?  Whether  justice,  mercy,  or  expedi- 
ency demanded  its  exercise  it  also  supplied  a  defect  in  those 
things  where  the  law  by  reason  ofi  ts  universality  was  deficient. 
I  took  an  illustration  of  these  special  exceptions.  One  of 
the  instances  cited  was  the  appointment  of  a  doorkeeper  for 
the  White  House  on  the  ground  that  such  doorkeeper  "must 
possess  qualifications  not  ordinarily  found  in  the  executive 
service."  It  might  seem  strange  that  a  mere  doorkeeper 
should  be  specially  excepted  for  this  reason  but  those  who  re- 
membered the  assassination  of  Garfield  and  McKinley  would 
realize  that  for  the  place  of  doorkeeper  in  the  White  House 
a  man  was  required  with  a  special  knowledge  of  faces  and 
character  and  a  knowledge  of  the  proper  way  to  act  under 


i84  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

critical  conditions  which  might  require  the  utmost  responsi- 
bility. One  case  after  another  might  be  taken  and  it  would 
be  found  that  there  was  some  good  reason  for  nearly  all  of 
them.  ^ 

The  question  whether  it  was  better  to  except  a  single  person 
or  an  entire  class  was  not  passed  upon  by  the  League.  I  still 
regard  our  plan  as  much  the  better  one. 

Of  course  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  general  principle  that 
appointments  should  be  made  by  rule  and  the  danger  is,  just 
as  in  the  case  of  pardons,  that  improper  cases  will  creep  in  and 
that  men  will  be  appointed  from  motives  of  benevolence, 
friendship,  personal  convenience,  and  the  like  and  in  some  cases 
this  occurs.  But  such  evils  are  less  than  the  exception  of  entire 
classes  for  the  sake  of  consistency  and  uniformity  which  is  the 
inevitable  alternative  in  every  case  where  an  exception  is  really 
necessary.  The  important  thing  is  to  see  that  unnecessary 
exceptions  are  not  made.^ 

The  average  mmiber  of  special  exceptions  annually  during 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  two  administrations  was  fifty -eight,  Mr. 
Taft's  sixty-two,  and  they  did  not  materially  increase  since 
that  time,  up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  war. 

ENFORCEMENT  OF  THE  LAW.      INVESTIGATIONS 

Important  as  were  the  extensions  of  the  classified  lists  and 
the  changes  in  the  rules,  the  most  important  service  which  the 

*  The  Boston  Herald  on  December  14,  1904,  criticized  me  for  excepting 
the  coachman  and  not  insisting  upon  the  competitive  examination,  saying 
it  was  a  case  of  favoritism,  pure  and  simple.  "Mr.  Foulke's  logical  error 
is  in  maintaining  that  a  man  not  eligible  to  the  classified  service  had  to  be 
gotten  into  it  somehow,  because  some  one  of  influence  insisted  upon  it." 

In  answer  to  this  article  I  referred  to  the  time  when  the  Commission 
had  adopted  the  plan  recommfended  by  the  Herald  and  certified  the  driver 
of  the  milk  wagon,  the  hearse,  and  the  street  car,  adding  that  it  was  just 
this  sort  of  hyper-criticism  which  enfeebled  the  efforts  of  the  Commission 
to  strengthen  the  law  in  public  opinion,  and  that  it  was  stickling  for  just 
such  trifles  in  opposition  to  plain  common  sense  which  was  calculated  to 
divide  the  coimsels  of  those  who  ought  to  be  working  together  for  the 
advancement  of  civil  service  reform. 

» To  accomplish  this  a  valuable  suggestion  was  made  by  Mr.  Choate, 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  THE  LAW  185 

President  rendered  the  reform  was  by  his  strict  and  impartial 
enforcement  of  the  law.  Up  to  this  time  the  Civil  Service 
Act  had  been  largely  regarded  as  a  theoretical  statute  to  be 
enforced  only  in  cases  where  it  was  politically  convenient  and 
desirable.  It  was  not  imtil  Mr.  Roosevelt's  administration 
that  offenders  were  actually  taken  by  the  nape  of  the  neck 
and  ejected  from  the  public  service  for  violating  this  law.' 

President  of  the  League,  at  its  meeting  in  Pittsburg,  Dec.  17,  1908,  and 
adopted  in  its  resolutions,  that  the  application  for  a  special  exception 
should  be  first  made  to  and  investigated  by  the  Civil  Service  Commission. 
'Among  the  more  important  cases  disposed  of  were  the  following: 
Charles  E.  Sapp,  Collector,  and  Leonard  Parsons,  Deputy  Collector  of 
Internal  Revenue  at  Louisville,  were  both  separated  from  the  service  (as 
we  have  already  seen)  for  collecting  campaign  fimds,  and  they,  together 
with  Joseph  Po toning,  who  had  solicited  such  funds,  were  afterwards  in- 
dicted, pleaded  guilty,  and  were  sentenced;  Sapp  and  Potoning  to  a  fine 
of  $500  and  Parsons  to  a  fine  of  $200. 

Collector  Dillon,  at  El  Paso,  who  had  caused  frauds  to  be  committed 
in  the  examinations  in  that  city,  was  removed  from  office. 

C.  O.  Self,  a  clerk  in  the  office  of  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue, 
was  dismissed  because  he  refused  to  furnish  to  the  Commission  information 
and  testimony  regarding  violations  of  the  law  in  Terre  Haute,  Indiana. 

D.  A.  Nunn,  Collector  of  Internal  Revenue  at  Nashville,  Tennessee, 
made  a  clean  sweep  of  the  subordinates  in  his  office  for  political  reasons. 
The  Commission  recommended  his  removal  and  he  resigned. 

James  M.  Curley  and  Thomas  F.  Curley  were  convicted  of  impersonat- 
ing two  candidates  at  a  civil  service  examination  in  Boston  and  were 
sentenced  to  two  months  in  jail.  It  is  a  rather  remarkable  commentary 
upon  public  opinion  in  that  city  that  some  years  afterwards  James  M. 
Curley  was  elected  Mayor. 

In  the  office  of  Appraiser  W.  F.  Wakeman  of  Brooklyn,  examiners  had 
been  irregularly  chosen,  there  were  many  temporary  appointments  in 
violation  of  the  rules,  and  laborers  had  been  assigned  to  classified  duties. 
On  October  29, 1901,  the  Commission  submitted  to  the  President  a  memo- 
randum of  the  facts  and  on  December  21st,  Wakeman  was  removed, 
other  causes  contributing  to  his  removal.  A  year  later  in  a  letter  to  the 
Commission  he  demanded  a  public  apology  and  correction  of  our  Nine- 
teenth Report,  which  referred  to  his  delinquencies,  declaring  it  to  be  false, 
misleading,  and  unjust.  We  asked  him  in  what  respect  but  received  no 
answer.  Accordingly,  on  January  28,  1903,  we  addressed  him  a  public 
letter,  stating  that  the  only  correction  which  was  desirable  was  to  say  that 
the  Nineteenth  Report  contained  a  very  incomplete  presentation  of  his 
numerous  acts  of  obstruction  which  had  extended  over  several  years,  were 


1 86  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

The  recommendations  of  the  Commission  as  to  the  punish- 
ment of  offenders  were  nearly  always  adopted.     In  one  case 

established  by  repeated  investigations,  and  abundantly  shown  by  the 
records  of  the  Commission  and  of  the  Treasury  Department.  We  specified 
in  detail  a  number  of  his  violations  of  the  law  and  thus  concluded: 

"These  cases  are  shown  by  the  records  to  which  you  appeal;  at  the 
President's  request  a  statement  was  furnished  to  him  shortly  before  your 
removal  and  was  considered  by  him  in  determining  whether  you  should 
continue  in  office.  It  may  be  that  other  reasons  for  your  removal  which 
were  disconnected  with  the  civil  service  law  were  considered  still  graver 
and  led  more  directly  to  your  separation  from  the  service,  but  if  so,  we 
should  think  that  you  would  be  the  last  person  to  insist  that  this  was  the 
fact.  Since  you  demand  a  public  statement  we  think  you  are  entitled  to 
it." 

One  of  my  earliest  cases  was  an  investigation  into  the  fairness  of  an 
examination  held  in  June,  1901,  for  special  statistical  compiler  for  the 
Department  of  Agriculture.  It  appeared  that  the  employees  in  the  Division 
of  Statistics  were  assisted  in  their  preparation  for  this  examination  by  Mrs. 
Bertha  Burch,  stenographer  and  clerk,  in  pursuance  of  instructions  from 
John  Hyde,  the  statistician,  to  give  them  all  the  help  in  this  examination 
she  "legitimately"  could.  The  information  she  gave  them  included  mat- 
ters embraced  in  at  least  six  questions  afterwards  asked  in  the  exami- 
nations. Mr.  Hyde  admitted  it  was  his  desire  to  avoid  a  certification  from 
our  eligible  registers  and  to  secure  instead  a  special  examination  where 
employees  were  aided  in  their  preparation  for  it  by  their  assignments  of 
work  and  that  he  had  not  expected  that  any  others  could  pass.  We  re- 
garded such  conditions  as  unfair  to  outside  competitors.  The  exami- 
nation was  accordingly  set  aside. 

In  some  of  our  investigations  of  course  the  charges  were  not  sustained. 
For  instance,  on  March  10, 1902,  T.W.  Wittier,  a  clerk  in  the  Chicago  post 
office,  alleged  that  the  postmaster,  F.  E.  Coyne,  had  twice  reduced  him  in 
place  and  salary  for  political  reasons  and  had  then  removed  him.  The 
investigation  proved  that  the  reductions  were  made  because  of  the  lack  of 
harmony  between  Wittier  and  his  subordinates  and  that  he  was  afterwards 
dismissed  because  he  refused  to  accept  his  reduced  position. 

A  statement  was  made  to  the  Commission  that  Postmaster  George  H. 
Roberts  had  made  removals,  reductions,  and  appointments  in  unclassified 
positions  in  the  Brooklyn  post  office  for  political  reasons.  I  went  to  Brook- 
lyn and  investigated  the  matter  thoroughly,  but  the  evidence  did  not 
sufficiently  establish  the  fact. 

In  other  cases  there  were  reasonable  grounds  for  leniency.  In  May, 
1902,  I  went  to  Terre  Haute  and  made  an  investigation  of  the  alleged 
political  coercion  of  employees  and  political  discrimination  in  the  assign- 
ment of  storekeeper  gauger<s  to  duty,  by  John  R.  Bonnell,  Collector  of 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  THE  LAW  187 

however'  the  evidence  was  considered  insufficient  and  in 
another  there  were  extenuating  circumstances  that  led  to 
milder  treatment.* 

There  was  a  case  of  political  assessments  in  Pennsylvania  in 
which  Senator  Quay  was  implicated.  A  circular  had  been  sent 
out  by  the  State  Republican  Committee,  of  which  Mr.  Quay  was 
chairman,  signed  by  him,  soliciting  contributions  from  office- 
holders. Commissioner  Garfield  at  once  reported  the  fact  to 
the  President,  who  directed  him  to  inform  the  Senator  that  this 


Internal  Revenue.  The  evidence  showed  no  coercion  though  it  appeared 
there  was  some  political  discrimination  in  the  assignments,  which  had  been 
made  by  the  collector  under  a  misapprehension  as  to  his  rights,  he  having 
been  recently  appointed  and  unfamiliar  with  the  duties  of  the  place.  I 
thought  the  circumstances  did  not  indicate  a  willful  violation  of  the  law 
and  did  not  justify  his  removal  and  he  was  warned  that  if  similar  com- 
plaints were  made  in  the  future  serious  consequences  would  follow. 

An  amusing  letter  was  sent  to  me  upon  this  subject,  from  an  unknown 
correspondent  at  Crawsfordsville,  Indiana,  as  follows:  "I  do  not  endorse 
your  decision  in  the  Bonnell  case.  He  violated  one  of  the  most  important 
provisions  of  the  law.  He  lives  here  and  is  active  in  the  management  of 
the  party  and  is  as  much  entitled  as  anyone  to  be  classed  as  head  cook  and 
bottle  washer.  It  is  my  opinion  that  you  cannot  make  many  such  decisions 
as  the  Bonnell  case  without  losing  your  influence  as  a  Civil  Service  Re- 
former. Mr.  Bonnell  may  very  properly  be  classed  as  one  who  needs  to  be 
placed  imder  the  restraining  influence  of  the  civil  service  law  in  office." 

To  this  I  answered:  "Your  views  would  indicate  that  hereafter  I  ought 
to  pay  less  attention  to  the  evidence  and  more  to  the  opinion  of  those  who 
have  not  heard  it.  Unfortunately,  a  habit  contracted  through  some  years' 
experience  in  practicing  in  the  courts  will  still  prevent  my  adopting  that 
view,  even  though  I  incur  the  risk  of  losing  my  influence.  Nor  do  I  under- 
stand how  it  is  that  Mr.  Bonnell  needs  to  be  placed  under  the  restraining 
influence  of  the  civil  service  law  when  in  office,  if  according  to  your  judg- 
ment in  another  part  of  your  letter  he  ought  to  be  kicked  out  of  office  at 
once." 

» The  Commission  preferred  charges  against  Park  Agnew,  Collector  of 
Internal  Revenue  and  Morgan  Treat,  United  States  Marshal  in  Virginia, 
for  being  concerned  in  the  solicitation  of  campaign  funds,  but  upon  a  hear- 
ing before  the  Attorney-General  to  whom  the  matter  was  referred  by  the 
President,  it  was  decided  that  the  evidence  was  not  sufficient  to  show  their 
participation  in  the  soliciting  circular. 

»  The  case  of  Wm.  T.  SulHvan  and  Charles  L.  Doran,  post  office  inspectors 
at  Denver. 


i88  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

request  for  contributions  must  be  immediately  and  publicly 
withdrawn  as  it  was  an  express  violation  of  the  law.  It  was 
thought  more  could  be  accomplished  in  this  way  than  by  a 
criminal  prosecution  which  had  small  chance  of  success.  Quay 
at  once  withdrew  the  circular  in  a  written  statement  which  was 
generally  published  and  circulated.  But  afterwards  another 
letter  was  sent  out  signed  by  the  treasurer  of  the  committee, 
and  upon  the  letter  head  was  the  name  of  Quay,  showing  that 
he  was  its  chairman.  One  of  these  letters  came  to  my  notice. 
I  showed  it  to  the  President  and  he  sent  me  to  Philadelphia  to 
tell  Mr.  Quay  that  this  letter,  like  the  other,  would  have  to  be 
withdrawn  at  once.  I  did  so  and  Quay  said  to  me:  **  I  won't 
do  it.  I  would  do  more  for  the  President  than  for  any  man  liv- 
ing. I  withdrew  the  previous  letter  but  this  one  was  written 
when  I  was  off  in  another  part  of  the  State  trying  to  settle  the 
coal  strike.  I  did  not  know  anything  about  the  sending  of  the 
letter  and  therefore  I  will  not  withdraw  it.  I  made  a  fool  of 
myself  once  to  oblige  the  President  and  I  won't  do  it  again. 
Let  him  have  me  indicted  if  he  will.  But,"  he  added  sig- 
nificantly, "  I  hope  he  won't  do  that  before  the  election." 

I  at  once  communicated  this  answer  to  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who 
suggested  that  I  lay  the  matter  before  the  Attorney  General 
to  see  whether  a  prosecution  could  be  sustained.  Mr.  Knox 
however  decided  that  it  would  be  useless,  inasmuch  as  we  were 
entirely  without  proof  that  Mr.  Quay  had  taken  any  part 
in  sending  the  latter  communication  or  even  knew  that  it 
had  been  sent. 

No  doubt  mistakes  were  made  in  some  of  our  investigations 
and  a  few  like  those  last  mentioned  had  no  results  but  on  the 
whole  those  in  charge  of  the  various  branches  of  the  govern- 
ment became  well  convinced  that  the  civil  service  law  had 
to  be  respected  as  much  as  any  other  and  the  violations  of  it 
became  fewer  and  fewer. 

POST  OFFICE  SCANDALS 

While  I  was  on  the  Commission  a  serious  scandal  arose  in 
the  Post  Office  Department  involving  a  considerable  num- 


POST  OFFICE  SCANDALS  189 

ber  of  the  officials.  Among  these  was  Mr.  Beavers,  Chief 
of  the  Salary  and  Allowance  Division.  None  of  the  officials 
implicated  had  entered  the  service  through  the  competitive  sys- 
tem and  the  disclostires  formed  an  impressive  commentary  on 
congressional  patronage  and  the  interference  of  Congressmen 
in  the  department. 

When  the  charges  were  first  made  Congress  asked  for  a 
report  of  the  facts  and  Mr.  Bristow,  then  Fourth  Assistant 
Postmaster-General,  was  directed  to  conduct  an  investigation. 
His  report  showed  that  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  Congress- 
men had  been  seeking  favors  of  Mr.  Beavers,  asking  increases 
of  allowances  at  different  post  offices,  many  of  which  increases 
were  illegal  and  fraudulent. 

Beavers  was  soon  under  indictment  and  there  was  a  large 
number  of  Congressmen  to  whom  a  certain  share  of  suspicion 
attached.  The  constituents  of  these  men  began  to  find  fault 
and  the  result  was  a  tremendous  outcry  in  the  House  of 
Representatives.  The  report  was  declared  to  be  a  libel  on 
Congress.  The  men  who  prepared  it  were  called  liars  and 
scoundrels  and  the  Post  Office  Department  in  general,  including 
officials  who  had  no  hand  at  all  in  its  preparation,  was  de- 
nounced in  unmeasured  terms.  ^ 

When  the  guilty  officials  were  tried  Beavers  and  some  others 
were  convicted  and  served  terms  in  the  penitentiary. 

'  The  New  York  Evening  Post  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  the  matter 
and  I  said:  "Congress  wanted  a  report  of  the  facts  and  now  howls  with 
rage  and  pain  when  the  consequences  of  its  own  demand  are  fotmd  to 
be  so  destructive  to  its  peace  of  mind.  In  making  this  uproar  it  will  not 
have  the  sympathy  of  the  country.  There  are,  no  doubt,  Congressmen 
who  have  innocently  made  these  requests  for  favors  from  the  indicted 
official  but  the  essential  fact  is  that  they  had  no  business  to  be  asking  such 
favors  at  all.  Congressmen  are  sent  to  Washington  for  other  purposes. 
.  .  .  Many  of  the  members  spend,  apparently,  about  half  their  time  in 
congressional  work  and  the  rest  of  it  'legging'  from  one  Department  to 
another  trying  to  get  a  pension  here,  a  promotion  there,  a  transfer  yonder, 
and  an  increase  of  allowance  somewhere  else. 

"This  business  is  simply  detestable.  Congress  has  an  undoubted  right, 
by  means  of  legislation,  to  control  the  administrative  branches  of  the 
government  and  through  its  committees  to  make  inquiries,  to  take  testi- 
mony, and  call  on  the  departments  for  every  possible  aid  in  its  legislative 


I90  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

THE  COMMISSION  ATTACKED  IN  THE  SENATE 

An  entertaining  episode  of  my  service  upon  the  Commission 
was  a  controversy  upon  the  floor  of  the  Senate  in  respect  to 
the  right  of  a  Commissioner  publicly  to  defend  his  own  acts. 
We  had  investigated  charges  of  the  collection  of  campaign 
funds  by  Joseph  Perrault,  Surveyor  General  of  Idaho,  Banford 
A.  Robb,  his  chief  clerk,  and  Elmer  E.  Forshay,  his  chief 
draughtsman.  Perrault  refused  to  testify.  We  notified  the 
President.  His  term  had  expired  and  he  was  not  reap- 
pointed.    Robb  resigned,  and  Forshay  was  dismissed. 

On  February  17,  1903,  Senator  Du  Bois  from  that  State 
charged  in  the  Senate  that  we  had  unjustly  procured  Forshay's 
removal,  since  Forshay,  he  said,  had  acted  under  duress,  and 
that  we  had  attempted  to  conceal  the  facts  and  had  refused 
to  furnish  to  him  proper  information  when  requested.  He 
introduced  a  resolution  that  the  Commission  send  to  the  Sen- 
ate a  statement  of  the  charges  and  the  evidence.  Senator 
Spooner  opposed  this  resolution  on  the  ground  that  the  Senate 
could  not  properly  devote  its  time  to  inquiring  into  each  case 
of  removal. 

The  charges  were  entirely  without  foundation.  The  Com- 
mission had  not  refused  to  furnish  any  information  and  For- 
shay had  not  been  acting  under  duress.  I  therefore  believed 
it  to  be  my  right  and  duty,  as  one  of  the  Commissioners 
involved,  to  deny  the  charges  thus  unjustly  made  and  I  ac- 
cordingly wrote  to  Senator  Spooner  and  to  two  other  Senators 
saying  that  if  not  opposed  to  the  public  interests  I  sincerely 
hoped  the  Senate  would  adopt  the  Du  Bois  resolution  and  let 
us  furnish  the  evidence.  In  my  letter  I  pointed  out  various 
inaccuracies  in  the  remarks  of  Senator  Du  Bois  and  also  in  a 

work.  But  single  members  of  Congress  acting  in  their  individual  capacity 
have  no  right  whatever  to  belabor  these  departments  with  personal  im- 
portunities. 

"The  wrath  of  the  Congressmen,  now  that  their  peccadilloes  are  to  be 
ventilated,  will  awaken  the  laughter  rather  than  the  S3mipathy  of  the 
country,  and  where,  as  in  some  cases,  the  thing  is  more  than  a  peccadillo, 
it  will  arouse  the  just  resentment  of  their  constituents  and  some  of  them 
may  very  properly  be  elected  to  stay  at  home." 


THE  COMMISSION  ATTACKED  IN  THE  SENATE    191 

statement  of  Senator  Bacon  of  Georgia  who  had  said  that  it 
seemed  to  be  a  conceded  fact  that  the  Commission  had  un- 
justly visited  its  condemnation  upon  the  young  man  Forshay 
and  had  failed  to  extend  it  to  the  officer  under  whose  command 
the  violation  of  the  law  had  been  perpetrated — a  statement 
quite  at  variance  with  the  facts.  My  letter  was  sent  by  Sena- 
tor Spooner  to  the  reading  desk  and  read  to  the  Senate  by  the 
secretary.  The  resolution  of  Senator  Du  Bois  was  accordingly 
adopted  and  we  furnished  to  the  Senate  the  charges  and 
evidence.  A  whole  special  session  of  the  Senate  now  elapsed 
and  that  body  adjourned  without  making  any  investigation 
or  even  referring  the  matter  to  a  committee.  Moreover 
Senator  Du  Bois  on  February  25th  had  admitted  that  the 
statement  made  by  him  in  regard  to  the  removal  of  Forshay, 
which  was  the  whole  gravamen  of  the  accusation,  was  incorrect. 
Yet  Senator  Bacon  declared  that  I  had  no  right  to  address 
to  individual  Senators  a  letter  pointing  out  these  inaccuracies. 
He  said: 

I  am  not  going  to  dignify  those  subordinate  officials  by  entering  into  a 
controversy  with  them  on  this  floor  as  to  whether  or  not  what  I  said  was 
correct,  or  whether  what  they  say  in  reply  is  correct.  I  think  it  a  matter 
of  supreme  effrontery  on  the  part  of  these  subordinates  that  they  should 
assume  to  enter  into  the  debates  of  the  Senate  in  any  such  way.  It  is  a 
gross,  inexcusable  breach  of  the  privilege  of  the  Senate. 

I  accordingly  wrote  to  Senator  Spooner  on  March  19th, 
reviewing  the  facts  and  adding: 

Thus  the  paradox  is  presented,  that  although  the  charge  was  untrue,  I 
had  no  right  to  point  out  the  particulars  in  which  it  was  imtrue,  even  in 
letters  to  individual  Senators.  In  other  words,  according  to  Senator  Bacon, 
the  Senate  is  not  willing  to  know  from  the  official  criticized  whether  what  is 
said  on  the  floor  is  correct  or  incorrect,  and  will  not  permit  men  whose  con- 
duct is  publicly  attacked  to  show  that  the  attack  is  unwarranted.  If  his 
position  is  sound,  it  would  be  the  duty  of  executive  officers  to  submit  in 
absolute  silence  to  the  gravest  charges  of  misconduct  or  even  of  crime 
uttered  in  the  most  public  place  in  the  nation.  No  self-respecting  man  could 
hold  an  administrative  office  under  such  conditions.  I  submit  that  it  is 
not  to  my  letter  that  the  epithet  of  "supreme  effrontery"  can  most  fitly 
be  applied.  ...  I  do  not  believe  that  any  considerable  number  of  Senators 
will  insist  upon  such  a  doctrine  of  senatorial  Ihe  majeste  as  will  prevent  any 


192  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

officer,  however  humble  the  position  he  may  hold,  from  protecting  himself 
against  unfotmded  accusations  by  every  lawful  means  in  his  power.  ^ 

CONCLUSION  OF  OFFICIAL  LIFE 

For  more  than  a  year  I  had  been  suffering  from  an  affection 
of  the  heart  and  my  physician  had  told  me  that  if  I  continued 
to  work  as  I  had  been  doing  my  life  would  be  greatly  shortened. 
I  was  accordingly  constrained,  in  the  spring  of  1903,  to  give 
up  my  place  on  the  Commission.  I  had  intended  for  some 
time  to  do  this  but  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  resigning  to  take 
part  in  the  presidential  campaign  of  1904,  in  which  Mr.  Roose- 
velt (whom  I  determined  actively  to  support)  would  be  a 
candidate.^  My  increasing  ill  health  however  made  it  neces- 
sary for  me  to  leave  sooner  than  I  intended. 

"^  The  press  of  the  country  seemed  to  take  my  part.  The  Washington 
correspondent  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post  remarked:  "When  one 
Senator  corrects  another's  misstatements  some  days  after  their  utterance,  it 
is  a  pretty  fair  sign  that  he  was  belated  in  learning  the  truth  himself,  and 
whether  in  the  meantime  he  ascertained  it  through  the  newspapers  or  from 
a  book  or  in  a  conversation  across  a  dinner  table  or  from  a  friend's  letter, 
how  is  the  question  affected  or  the  Senator's  dignity  concerned?  To 
everyone  outside  of  the  sacred  four  walls  of  the  Senate  Chamber  such  an 
assumption  seems  as  comical  as  the  pretensions  of  the  grand  Llama  of 
Tibet.  Almost  every  other  petty  officeholder,  like  a  Civil  Service  Com- 
missioner, would  have  gone  in  and  hid  his  head  after  such  a  dressing  down 
as  Mr.  Foulke  received  that  day,  but  he  has  a  strenuous  streak  in  his  com- 
position which  makes  him  slightly  uncomfortable  when  things  are  moving 
too  smoothly.  Instead  of  admitting  that  he  had  done  wrong  and  deserved 
his  punishment,  he  actually  assumed  that  it  was  his  critics  who  had  offended 
and  that  they  would  hasten  as  soon  as  they  were  cool  once  more  to  retract 
their  assaults  upon  him.  He  waited  all  through  the  regular  session  and 
all  through  the  special  session  in  vain.  Then  out  he  came  with  his  second 
letter,  addressed  like  its  predecessor  to  Senator  Spooner.  Probably  when- 
ever his  name  or  that  of  the  Commission  comes  up  next  winter  in  the 
Senate  he  will  get  his  response  to  this  communication  in  turn.  If  the 
Senators  who  descanted  upon  Mr.  Foulke's  impropriety  of  conduct  expect 
thus  to  move  the  President  to  turn  him  out  of  office  they  have  poor 
memories.  No  Civil  Service  Commissioner  was  ever  more  given  to  speak 
his  mind  of  the  Senators  than  Mr.  Roosevelt."  Here  the  article  cited  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  controversies  when  Commissioner  with  Senators  Gorman, 
Plumb*  Stewart,  Gallinger.  Mitchell,  and  others  under  similar  conditions. 

*  I  had  previously  spoken  of  this  to  a  number  of  my  friends  and  naturally 


CONCLUSION  OF  OFFICIAL  LIFE  193 

The  President  was  in  the  West  and  would  not  return  for  a 
considerable  time.  I  learned  that  on  a  certain  date  he  would 
come  as  far  east  as  Kansas  and  I  met  him  in  a  little  town  in 
the  western  part  of  that  State  where  I  explained  to  him  my 
inability  to  continue  the  work  and  gave  him  my  resignation 
which  he  accepted  with  many  kindly  expressions  of  regret  and 
friendship.  In  a  very  short  time  I  was  on  my  way  to  Europe 
to  take  treatment  at  the  baths  at  Nauheim,  which  I  repeated 
nearly  every  year  until  the  outbreak  of  the  great  war. 

For  many  reasons  I  was  very  sorry  to  quit  the  service. 
Life  in  Washington  had  been  delightful  and  I  could  but  feel 
that  the  competitive  system  had  been  making  long  strides 
ahead.  In  spite  of  the  controversies  with  various  members  of 
Congress,  that  body  had  become  more  tolerant  of  our  work 
and  had  given  us  the  additional  appropriations  necessary  to 
carry  it  on.  Indeed,  the  House  of  Representatives  had  voted 
for  this  in  December,  1902,  without  a  dissenting  voice.  The 
National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  had  spoken  in  warm 
approval  of  the  progress  made.  My  resignation  was  given  on 
April  30th,  but  at  the  President's  request  it  was  not  published 


the  newspapers  learned  of  it,  upon  which  the  Washington  Post,  which  had 
always  been  poking  fun  at  the  Commission,  published  on  April  21st  an 
editorial  containing  the  following: 

"  We  were  a  long  time  catching  Foulke,  and  now  that  we  have  got  him, 
we  shall  not  let  him  escape  without  a  struggle.  Who  has  contributed 
so  much  in  the  same  period  to  the  gayety  of  nations?  Who  has  rapped 
fault-finding  newspaper  editors  over  the  knuckles  with  the  same  expansive 
glee?  Who  has  jvunped  into  squabbles  with  a  finer  indifference  to  conse- 
quences, when  he  saw  a  head  sticking  up  that  he  believed  he  could  hit? 
Who  but  he  ever  put  the  astute  Spooner  into  a  defensive  position  among 
his  colleagues  by  so  simple  a  process  as  writing  him  a  letter  which  he  would 
publish  without  reading  ?  Who  ever  told  the  whole  Senate  what  he  thought 
of  its  authority  over  the  office  holding  freeman  and  snapped  his  fingers 
in  its  august  face  with  more  unceremonious  directness?  .  .  . 

"Nay,  nay!  There  is  still  work  to  be  done  in  Washington  which 
only  Foulke  can  do.  Indiana  can  take  care  of  herself.  She  has  been 
carried  before  without  the  aid  of  civil  service  reformers.  There  is  no 
reason,  in  view  of  her  record  in  politics,  why  Foulke — our  Foulke — should 
immolate  himself  on  the  altar  of  strenuous  oratory  and  leave  the  Capital 
of  the  nation  widowed." 
13 


194  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

nor  generally  known  in  order  that  he  might  not  be  unneces- 
sarily pressed  in  regard  to  my  successor.  Mr.  Alford  Warriner 
Cooley  was  afterwards  appointed  to  the  place — a  very  admir- 
able appointment — and  later  Mr.  H.  F.  Green  was  appointed  to 
the  position  which  had  already  been  vacated  by  Mr.  Garfield.' 

*  Shortly  after  I  had  sailed  for  Europe  a  very  flattering  article  on  the 
retiring  Commissioner  appeared  in  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  written 
by  its  Washington  correspondent,  Mr.  Francis  E.  Leupp.  And  about 
the  same  time  the  New  York  Sun,  which  for  many  years  had  been  deriding 
civil  service  reform,  published  the  following  which,  although  filled  with 
imaginative  material,  expressed  fairly  well  the  idea  of  the  opponents  of  the 
reform  concerning  the  progress  made: 

"The  butcher,  the  baker,  the  candlestick  maker 

Are  all  on  the  classified  list. 
The  watchman  and  fireman,  the  cook  and  the  pieman 

Must  do  just  what  we  insist. 
The  porter  and  painter,  the  plumber  and  waiter 

Are  examined  when  we  demand. 
Oh,  we're  getting  them  all,  they  come  at  our  call. 

And  we're  right  up  behind  the  band. 

"That  is  one  stanza  of  the  'Anthem  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission,' 
also  known  as  'The  Song  of  the  C.  S.  C  There  are  sixteen  other 
stanzas  and  they  are  all  on  the  same  order  and  just  as  good.  They  set 
forth  the  expansion  policy  of  the  Commission  and  describe  as  fully  as  can 
be  done  in  poetry  turned  out  with  a  conscientious  regard  for  feet  as  well  as 
sentiment,  the  manner  in  which  this  particular  branch  of  the  government 
service  is  practicing  a  new  kind  of  benevolent  assimilation. 

"  According  to  the  best  authority — which  is  a  delicate  way  of  intimating 
that  somebody  is  afraid  of  getting  hurt  if  it  became  known  that  he  let 
out  the  secret — the  anthem  was  left  to  the  Civil  Service  Commission 
as  a  legacy  by  the  Hon.  William  Dudley  Fouike — 'our  Dudley,'  as  he  is 
proudly  and  familiarly  called  in  Washington — who  resigned  his  office  some 
months  ago  in  order  to  tighten  the  Indiana  cinch  of  the  Republican  presi- 
dential saddle.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  announcement  of  Mr.  Foulke's 
authorship  of  the  'Song  6f  the  C.  S.  C  should  noioccasion  even  a  ripple  of 
surprise. 

"Almost  all  of  Mr.  Foulke's  moments  of  relaxation  and  recreation  from 
his  arduous  duties  as  a  member  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  were 
devoted  to  the  discomfiture  and  undoing  of  such  critics  of  that  body  as  he 
considered  worthy  of  his  ink  and  steel.  It  was  Mr.  Fouike  who  trifled 
with  the  dignity  of  the  United  States  Senate  at  the  last  session  of  Congress, 
just  as  his  friend,  former  commissioner,  now  President  Roosevelt  did  some 


CONCLUSION  OF  OFFICIAL  LIFE  195 

years  ago,  and  it  was  Mr.  Foulke  who  damned  a  torrent  of  abuse  eloquent 
from  the  pen  of  an  irate  editor  with  the  now  famous  remark  that  his  critic 
argued  like  the  man  who  defined  a  crab  as  'a  small  red  fish  that  walks 
backward.'  It  is  true  that  the  editor,  in  a  final  letter,  rude  in  tone  and 
chary  of  words,  insisted  that  a  small  red  fish  that  went  the  wrong  way  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  administration  of  the  civil  service  laws,  but  Mr. 
Foulke's  admirers  and  friends  took  this  as  a  confession  of  weakness  on  the 
critic's  part,  and  as  no  high  class  argument  anyhow. 

"  In  the  brief  intervals  when  Mr.  Foulke  was  not  transacting  business 
nor  writing  letters,  he  was  thinking  up  ways  and  means  to  extend  the  powers 
of  the  Commission.  He  was  the  moving  spirit  in  the  blanketing  scheme 
which  resulted  in  general  orders  from  President  Roosevelt  placing  the  entire 
rural  free  delivery,  with  its  thousands  of  employees,  under  the  civil  service, 
and  celebrated  this  achievement  by  twisting  a  somewhat  familiar  advertis- 
ing catch-phrase  into  the  aggressive  announcement:  'Anybody!  Every- 
body!   Everybody  I    Anybody!     Get  examined  by  the  civil  service  man.' 

"Mr.  Foulke  was  also  the  inventor  and  elaborator  of  the  extended  registry 
system  now  in  use,  which  has  made  the  Commission  similar  to  an  employ- 
ment agency  on  a  gigantic  scale,  with  ability  to  furnish  from  its  eligible 
list  men  and  women  capable  of  filling  any  job  under  the  sim,  including  a 
selected  assortment  of  mechanics,  interpreters,  snake  catchers,  nurses, 
anthropologists,  physicians,  hodcarriers,  lawyers,  bricklayers,  brass  finish- 
ers, and  ordinary  government  clerks.  1 

"In  view  of  the  many  instances  in  which  Mr.  Foulke  evinced  his  ver- 
satility and  talent,  the  'Song  of  the  C.  S.  C  hadn't  been  out  very  long 
before  it  was  generally  understood  that  he  was  the  author.  And  the  song 
itself,  expressing  as  it  does,  all  the  ends,  aims,  hopes,  and  desires  of  the 
Commission  and  jingling  through  its  sixteen  stanzas  to  a  mighty  catchy  air 
— Mr.  Foulke  hasn't  been  accused  of  writing  the  music — ^had  made  a 
great  hit  with  the  employees  of  that  particular  branch  of  the  govenmient 
service. 

"A  Washington  citizen  heard  about  the  song  some  days  ago  and  decided 
to  procure  a  copy.     His  visit  to  headquarters  was  decidedly  interesting. 

"He  arrived  at  Eighth  and  E  Streets,  where  the  Civil  Service  building 
is  located,  just  at  lunch  time.  On  a  wide  ledge,  just  outside  the  front  d,oor, 
a  colored  messenger  was  sitting,  ki-cking  his  heels  against  the  bricks  and 
whistling  with  all  the  strength  of  his  limgs  a  catchy  but  unfamiliar  air. 

"  'What's  that?'  asked  the  citizen,  who  has  lived  in  ofiicial  Washington 
so  long  that  he  is  politely  curious  and  curiously  polite  from  mere  force  of 
habit. 

"  'That's  the  anthem  of  this  here  commishtm,'  was  the  reply.  'Ain't 
it  got  a  shufifle!  Suttently  do  mek  my  feet  itch.  I'se  been  promised  a 
copy  of  the  words  this  evenin'.* 

"  The  messenger  took  up  the  tune  where  he  left  off  and  the  visitor  entered 
the  building. 


196  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

'"Good  morning,'  he  said  to  the  elevator  man,  but  that  official  was 
otherwise  engaged  and  didn't  answer. 

"  A  sheet  of  paper  was  fastened  to  one  side  of  the  wire  cage  on  a  level  with 
his  eyes,  and  he  was  singing,  in  a  very  audible  tone,  as  he  clutched  the 
starting  lever  from  force  of  habit: 

" '  The  kickers  and  knockers  and  growlers,  you  know, 

May  roast  us  as  much  as  they  please, 
But  they've  only  a  show  for  the  government  dough 

If  they  pass  their  exams,  with  ease. 
No  official  nor  clerk  with  a  shirk  to  his  work 

Can  blufiF  us  with  frown  or  glad  hand. 
Oh,  we're  getting  them  all,  they  come  at  our  call, 

And  we're  right  up  behind  the  band.* 

"'Howdy,'  said  the  elevator  man  when  he  had  finished,  'That's  the 
twelfth  verse,'  he  added  with  almost  proprietary  pride,  'and  the  rest  are 
all  just  as  good.  It  ain't  no  weak  wishy-washy  stuff  about  trees  and 
flowers  and  love  and  sad  sea  waves.  It's  somethin'  a  feller  can  imderstand 
and  sing  without  feelin'  foolish.  There  ain't  nobody  but  Mr.  Foulke  can 
write  stuff  like  that.' 

"The  elevator  man  became  so  interested  in  describing  the  merits  of  the 
anthem  that  he  took  the  visitor  to  the  top  floor  by  mistake  and  had  to  be 
punched  in  the  ribs  for  a  reminder.  When  he  let  the  passenger  out  and 
shut  the  door  for  the  down  trip,  he  was  so  busy  with  the  thirteenth  stanza 
that  he  appeared  in  danger  of  bringing  up  with  a  bump  at  the  basement. 

"  The  visitor  was  considerably  interested  and  a  whole  lot  amused  by  this 
time  and  thought  it  possible  that  Secretary  Doyle  could  settle  the  author- 
ship of  the  anthem.  Mr.  Doyle  is  an  austere  individual  of  some  forty-odd 
winters,  who  has  a  severely  aquiline  nose,  a  firm  mouth,  and  a  firmer  jaw, 
and  who  is  partial  to  somber-hued  raiment  of  a  clerical  cut.  In  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Irish  applicant  for  a  government  position  who,  at  a  recent  ex- 
amination before  the  Commission,  read  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the 
Constitution  from  a  page  of  the  Postal  Laws  and  Regulations  and  was 
somewhat  hastily  rejected  in  consequence,  'Mr.  Doyle  is  a  cowld,  har-rd 
man.' 

"  Consequently  the  visitor  gasped  with  surprise  when,  on  entering  the 
secretary's  private  office,  he  found  Mr.  Doyle  with  an  expression  of  intense 
enjojnnent  on  his  aristocratic  countenance,  beating  time  with  a  ruler  on 
his  polished  desk  top  and  singing,  in  a  voice  grown  a  trifle  rusty  from  disuse: 

"  '  I  think  we  may  say,  as  we  work  day  by  day, 
To  show  what  a  pupil  ain't  worth. 
That  at  some  future  date,  just  when  we  won't  state, 
We  will  rule  o'er  a  classified  earth. 


CONCLUSION  OF  OFFICIAL  LIFE  197 

When  everyone  here,  on  this  eligible  sphere, 

Will  greet  us  with  outstretched  hand. 
Oh,  we're  getting  them  all,  they  come  at  our  call, 

And  we're  right  up  behind  the  band.' 

"When  Mr.  Doyle  perceived  his  astonished  visitor,  he  blushed  like  a 
schoolgirl,  cleared  his  throat  with  an  official  rasp,  frowned  severely,  and 
began  to  muss  up  some  paper  on  his  desk. 

" ' Good  morning,'  he  said  with  a  remarkable  access  of  dignity.  'What 
can  I  db  for  you  this  morning,  sir? ' 

"'You  might  tell  me  the  name  of  the  author  of  that  popular  ditty/ 
answered  the  citizen. 

"  Mr.  Doyle  mussed  up  some  more  papers. 

*"I  really  cannot  give  you  the  desired  information,'  he  said.  *A  copy 
of  that — er — somewhat  frivolous  composition  was  left  on  my  desk  the  other 
day  and  I  was — er — merely  enjoying — I  should  say,  trifling  in  a  moment 
of  relaxation.' 

*"0h,'  said  the  visitor.  'Then  you  can  give  me  your  copy?  I  should 
like  to  have  one.' 

*"I  should  be  pleased  to  do  so,'  returned  the  secretary,  his  dignity  well 
in  hand,  'but  the  fact  is,  I — er — ^have  promised  the  only  one  I  have  to — 
er — a  friend.' 

"  The  visitor  decided  that  he  would  have  to  go  back  and  borrow  the  ele- 
vator man's  copy  of  the  'Song  of  the  C.  S.  C  and  on  his  way  down  the  hall 
stopped  to  pass  the  time  of  day  with  Commissioner  Greene.  Mr.  Greene 
is  rotund  and  good  natured,  and  on  this  particular  occasion  he  was  stand- 
ing at  the  window,  drumming  with  his  finger  tips  on  the  pane,  and  singing 
merrily: 


'"When  we  rule  every  job  on  the  classified  earth, 

We'll  turn  our  attention  to  Mars, 
And  when  there's  a  dearth  of  classified  worth 

We'll  examine  the  classified  stars. 
We're  here  with  our  lists  and  we're  here  with  the  jobs, 

And  we  trust  you  will  understand 
That  we're  getting  them  all,  the  great  and  the  small, 

And  are  right  up  behind  the  band.' 

"  '  Mr.  Commissioner,'  said  the  visitor,  in  desperation,  'everybody  in  the 
building  is  singing  that  infernal  song  and  I  want  a  copy  of  it.  Have  you 
one  to  spare? ' 

" '  Why,  of  course,'  said  Mr.  Greene,  pulling  out  a  drawer  of  the  desk 
formerly  occupied  by  Commissioner  Foulke.  'Here  are  half  a  dozen, 
Help  yourself.' 


198  THE  REFORMS  ACCOMPLISHED 

"The  visitor  took  two  neatly  typewritten  copies  of  the  'Song  of  the  C. 
S.  C  and  remarked  earnestly: 

"  '  Mr.  Commissioner,  I  wish  you  would  tell  me  who  wrote  this  song.' 

"  The  Commissioner  smiled  a  wide  smile,  stuck  his  hands  in  his  pockets» 
and  closed  his  left  eye  for  a  brief  space. 

"  'I'm  blessed  if  I  know,'  he  remarked  cheerfully." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    I904 — ROOSEVELT's   CHARACTERISTICS 

In  the  fall  of  1903,  I  returned  from  Etirope  considerably 
improved  in  health  and  at  a  meeting  of  the  Council  of  the 
League  on  October  7th,  I  was  again  elected  a  member  of  that 
body  from  which  I  had  resigned  when  I  became  Commissioner 
and  was  soon  working  again  with  my  old  friends  in  the  same 
way  as  before. 

I  attended  the  annual  meeting  at  Baltimore,  December 
10  and  II,  1903,  and  there  delivered  an  address  in  a  rather 
triimiphant  strain  on  "The  Advance  of  the  Competitive 
System,"  showing  the  immense  strides  which  civil  service 
reform  had  made  since  the  passage  of  the  law  and  particularly 
during  the  administration  of  President  Roosevelt,  and  point- 
ing out  the  need  of  consolidating  and  strengthening  the  things 
we  had  gained  by  suitable  provisions  against  superannuation 
in  the  service.' 

But  the  cause  of  civil  service  reform  now  sustained  a 
serious  loss  in  the  death  of  one  of  its  strongest  and  ablest 
supporters,  the  Hon.  John  R.  Proctor,  president  of  the  Com- 
mission. He  had  been  present  and  had  taken  part  in  the 
debates  at  this  Baltimore  meeting.  He  had  spoken  with  a 
ntunber  of  others  at  the  dinner  given  at  the  close  of  our 
session,  and  on  the  following  day  on  returning  to  Washington 
he  had  been  seized  with  an  attack  of  angina  pectoris  and  after 
a  few  hours  of  intense  suffering  he  expired.  He  was  an  able 
and  upright  official,  an  attractive  and  lovable  companion  and 
a  loyal  friend,  and  those  of  us  who  attended  his  funeral  at 
St.  John's  Church,  where  the  President  was  one  of  the  chief 

»  This  address  is  given  in  Appendix  VIII. 

I9Q 


200  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904 

mourners,  realized  that  at  no  time  since  the  death  of  George 
William  Curtis  and  Dorman  B.  Eaton  had  so  large  a  vacancy 
been  left  in  the  ranks  of  the  eminent  advocates  of  civil  service 
reform. 

The  President  appointed  to  succeed  him  John  C.  Black,  a 
veteran  who  had  been  seriously  wounded  in  the  Civil  War 
and  who  had  been  Commissioner  of  Pensions  in  a  previous 
administration.  Mr.  Roosevelt  made  this  choice,  I  think, 
largely  because  he  believed  that  the  merit  system  could  be 
strengthened  by  the  participation  of  one  of  the  active  members 
of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic  in  the  work  of  the  reform. 
General  Black  was  a  man  of  great  eloquence,  of  the  highest 
character,  and  devoted  to  the  competitive  system,  although  his 
advancing  age  and  his  infirmities  rendered  the  services  which 
he  was  able  to  perform  on  behalf  of  the  system  less  effective 
than  if  he  had  been  a  younger  and  more  vigorous  man. 

The  presidential  campaign  of  1904  was  now  approaching. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  had  been  nominated  by  the  Republican  party 
to  succeed  himself  and  Alton  B.  Parker  was  the  candidate  of 
the  Democratic  party.  During  the  summer  of  this  year  I  had 
again  gone  to  Nauheim,  Germany.  I  returned  in  September. 
The  Democratic  platform  which  had  been  adopted  at  St.  Louis 
contained  the  following: 

The  Democratic  party  stands  committed  to  the  principle  of  Civil  Service 
Reform  and  we  demand  its  honest,  just,  and  impartial  enforcement.  We 
denounce  the  Republican  party  for  its  continuous  and  sinister  encroach- 
ments upon  the  spirit  and  operation  of  the  Civil  Service  rules,  whereby 
it  has  arbitrarily  dispensed  with  examinations  for  office  in  the  interests  of 
favorites  and  employed  all  manner  of  devices  to  overreach  and  set  aside 
the  principles  upon  which  the  Civil  Service  was  based. 

I  naturally  was  indignant  at  such  a  declaration  and  said, 
in  an  interview,  that  a  more  glaring  example  of  impudent 
mendacity  it  would  be  impossible  to  find.  The  resolution 
contained  two  distinct  falsehoods:  first,  that  the  Democratic 
party  was  committed  to  the  reform,  whereas  eight  years  before, 
Mr.  Bryan,  its  candidate,  went  through  the  country  denounc- 
ing the  system  and  the  platform,  practically  demanded  its 
repeal,  and  within  four  years  that  platform  was  reafi&rmed 


ROOSEVEITS  CHARACTERISTICS  201 

and  the  same  candidate  renominated.  It  was  equally  false 
to  say  that  the  Republicans  had  made  sinister  and  continual 
encroachments  on  the  civil  service  rules,  dispensing  with 
examinations  in  the  interest  of  favorites  and  employing  de- 
vices to  overreach  the  law.  At  no  time  since  the  adoption  of 
the  law  had  the  rules  been  so  uniformly  enforced  and  the 
spirit  of  the  reform  so  consistently  observed. 

But  all  through  the  campaign  the  drift  toward  Roosevelt 
was  unmistakable.  The  huge  Democratic  transparencies 
*' Parker  and  Prudence,"  the  demand  for  the  election  of  a 
"safe  and  sane  candidate,"  and  the  kaleidoscopic  shifting  of 
the  issues  as  presented  by  the  Democrats  were  all  extremely 
uninspiring  and  there  was  little  surprise  when  after  the  elec- 
tion it  was  found  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  been  chosen  by  the 
largest  majority  ever  cast  up  to  that  time,  for  an  American 
President. 

In  this  campaign  the  New  York  World,  one  of  his  strongest 
opponents,  declared  that  the  paramotmt  issue  was  himself,  and 
as  this  was  undoubtedly''  the  fact,  the  present  may  not  be  an 
inappropriate  place  to  consider  what  were  the  qualities  by 
which  he  had  won  the  confidence  of  the  American  people  after 
nearly  four  years'  experience  with  his  administration. 

I.  Conspicuous  among  these  was  his  daring  frankness  in 
thought  and  speech  and  action.  He  did  not  say  one  thing  and 
mean  another.  He  had  no  subtlety  or  diplomatic  finesse. 
He  was  not  lacking  in  tact  but  it  was  the  tact  that  depended 
upon  good  sense  and  love  of  fair  play.  He  could  "think 
straight  and  see  clear"  and  he  sought  his  end  by  the  directest 
road. 

II.  His  utter  fearlessness,  not  merely  of  personal  danger 
but  of  the  consequences  to  himself  from  doing  the  thing  he 
believed  to  be  best  for  the  public  welfare.  When  warned  that 
his  intervention  in  the  coal  strike  would  blast  his  future  he 
set  his  teeth  and  said,  "Yes,  I  suppose  it  ends  me,  but  it  is  right, 
and  I  will  do  it. "  But  he  was  by  no  means  as  rash  as  many 
supposed.  In  important  matters  he  consulted  those  he 
trusted  and  no  man  was  more  willing  to  change  his  mind  if 
reasons  were  given  to  him  which  he  believed  were  sound.    I 


202  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904 

have  seen  him  reverse  his  decision  in  an  instant  upon  a  mere 
suggestion  which  he  recognized  was  supported  by  good  grounds. 
Counsel  was  always  welcome  to  him  from  sources  which  he 
respected  but  no  effort  to  control  him  ever  succeeded. 

III.  His  accurate  sense  of  justice.  He  wanted  every  man 
to  have  "a  square  deal."  When  he  was  Civil  Service  Com- 
missioner he  filled  the  quotas  from  the  South  by  announcing 
that  Democrats  should  have  just  as  good  a  chance  for  appoint- 
ment as  Republicans.  I  think  his  Support  of  the  civil  service 
system  was  due  principally  to  the  fact  that  this  system  en-  • 
couraged  fair  play,  that  under  it  the  farmer's  lad  and  me- 
chanic's son,  who  had  no  one  to  speak  for  them,  had  the  same 
chance  as  the  social  and  political  favorite.  It  was  this  spirit 
that  led  him  to  declare  "The  White  House  door  while  I  am 
here  shall  swing  open  as  easily  for  the  laboring  man  as  for  the 
capitalist  and  no  easier.''  It  was  nattiral  that  his  straight- 
forward way  of  dealing  with  men  should  be  misunderstood  by 
politicians,  who  called  it  the  "honesty  racket"  and  exclaimed, 
"How  well  he  does  it!" 

IV.  His  immense  human  S5Tnpathy.  He  was  naturally 
fond  of  men.  Although  of  aristocratic  lineage  and  ante- 
cedents, he  was  instinctively  drawn  to  "the  plain  people." 
With  the  policeman,  the  locomotive  engineer,  the  cowboy,  the 
mountain  guide,  he  had  often  a  closer  S3niipathy  than  with 
members  of  the  exclusive  social  circle  in  which  he  was  born  and 
bred.  This  sympathy  had  not  the  least  taint  of  cant  or  politi- 
cal motive  behind  it.  It  was  a  corollary  to  this  feeling  that 
he  had  an  implicit  reliance  upon  the  mass  of  the  people.  He 
used  to  distrust  his  own  skill  in  handling  political  conditions 
but  no  man  since  Lincoln  ever  had  a  stronger  belief  in  the 
honesty  and  good  sense  of  the  American  electorate. 

V.  His  prodigious  capacity  for  hard  work.  He  could  think 
like  lightning  and  weigh  in  an  instant  considerations  which 
with  others  would  require  a  hundred  fold  the  same  period  of 
time.  I  have  seen  him  go  over  a  huge  pile  of  correspondence, 
read  some  of  the  letters  and  correct  and  sign  others  with  great 
rapidity,  and  at  the  same  time  discuss  with  a  number  of  visitors 
seated  arotmd  his  table  complicated  questions  upon  an  entirely 


ROOSEVELTS  CHARACTERISTICS  203 

different  subject.  He  did  not  work  as  many  hours  as  some 
other  Presidents,  such  as  Mr.  Cleveland,  but  he  had  an  ex- 
traordinary faculty  of  boiling  down  the  thing  he  had  to  do 
and  getting  it  finished.  He  actually  revelled  in  his  work. 
"It's  a  pretty  hard  job  here,"  he  once  said  to  me,  "but  I'm 
having  a  good  time  of  it."  He  not  only  worked  tremendously 
himself,  he  also  made  everybody  under  him  work  in  the  same 
way.  His  knowledge  of  men  was  extensive  and  accurate. 
No  one  in  America  had  so  wide  an  acquaintance  and  knew  so 
well  how  to  lay  his  hand  upon  the  exact  man  he  needed  for  the 
task  under  consideration.  And  when  he  had  chosen  his  agent 
he  trusted  him  with  all  the  details  and  demanded  only  results. 
He  wasted  no  time  on  trifles.  The  moment  he  arrived  at  a 
decision  he  carried  it  into  instant  execution. 

VI.  His  inspiring  personality.  I  certainly  never  knew 
anyone  who  could  arouse  so  much  enthusiasm  and  devotion. 
Those  with  whom  he  was  associated  would  go  through  fire 
and  water  to  serve  him.  He  was  always  ready  to  give  the 
fullest  amount  of  credit  where  it  was  due  and  was  generally 
proud  of  the  men  whom  he  had  gathered  around  him  and 
indeed  of  all  those  who  cooperated  in  his  undertakings.  He 
once  said  to  me  in  the  early  days  of  his  administration,  "I 
have  an  admirable  Cabinet  and  I  have  the  right  to  say  so  for 
I  did  not  select  it."  He  had  retained  the  members  chosen  by 
McIGnley. 

VII.  His  practical  nature.  He  had  high  ideals  but  he 
never  sought  the  unattainable.  He  would  not  struggle  vainly 
for  the  perfect  and  abstract  right  when  he  would  lose  thereby 
the  good  that  could  be  accomplished  by  seeking  something 
less.  He  had  to  make  all  the  parts  of  this  great  government 
work  together  and  he  would  make  them  work  as  nearly  right 
as  he  could  but  he  would  never  insist  vainly  upon  things  which 
could  not  be  accomplished.  Many  considered  him  erratic, 
"an  uncertain  quantity."  But  he  was  not  uncertain  in  the 
least.  His  conduct  in  any  given  case  if  you  knew  all  the  facts 
could  be  predicted  more  surely,  it  seemed  to  me,  than  that  of 
any  other  man  I  ever  knew.  When  you  could  tell  what  was 
the  right  thing  to  do  so  far  as  that  right  thing  was  reasonably 


204  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904 

attainable  you  had  your  answer  to  the  question.  It  was  this 
consideration  which  explains  his  association  with  Piatt, 
Quay,  and  other  bosses  for  which  Mr.  Schurz  and  others 
reproached  him.  He  never  refused  to  cooperate  in  all  meas- 
ures which  he  deemed  desirable  with  those  whom  the  people 
had  chosen  as  their  representatives,  or  to  maintain  friendly 
relations  with  them.  It  was  only  when  they  sought  to  do 
something  which  he  thought  ought  not  to  be  done  that  he 
stood  in  their  way. 

His  affections  and  his  antipathies  were  strong,  his  person- 
ality was  masterful,  his  home  life  was  ideal,  his  powers  of 
conversation  were  brilliant.  He  was  constantly  bubbling 
over  with  merriment,  he  had  the  keenest  sense  of  humor,  and 
would  keep  the  table  in  roars  of  laughter.  Of  the  thousand 
absurdities  which  took  place  in  his  presence  not  one  escaped 
his  penetrating  observation.  He  could  enjoy  a  joke  upon 
himself  too  and  his  friends  were  not  afraid  of  criticizing  him. 
He  talked  a  great  deal  and  upon  every  possible  subject,  for 
his  knowledge  was  encyclopedic. 

All  these  things,  with  his  splendid  physique  and  the  spirit 
of  practical  optimism  by  which  he  epitomized  the  joy  of 
living,  realized  to  the  full  the  old  Roman  ideal  of  the  ''mens 
Sana  in  cor  pore  sano''  and  fitted  him  admirably  to  be  the 
President  of  a  vigorous,  great,  and  flourishing  republic. 

FURTHER   CHANGES 

After  Mr.  Roosevelt's  reelection  he  made  further  extensions 
in  the  classified  service  and  introduced  improvements  in  the 
methods  of  carrying  on  the  work.  ^ 

On  June  3,  1907,  he  inserted  in  the  civil  service  rules  the 
declarations  contained  in  his  letter  to  us  on  June  13,  1902, 
forbidding  officers  and  employees  in  the  competitive  classified 
service  from  taking  part  in  political  management  or  in  po- 

'  A  very  valuable  improvement  had  been  made  shortly  after  I  left  the 
Commission,  in  consolidating  the  local  civil  service  boards  into  districts 
with  an  experienced  man  in  charge  of  each  district.  In  1904,  thirteen  such 
districts  were  established, 


CARL  SCHURZ  205 

litical  campaigns.  This  gave  the  Commission  power  to  inves- 
tigate and  report  upon  all  such  cases. 

In  the  meantime  changes  had  been  going  on  both  in  the 
Commission  and  in  the  ranks  of  the  League.  On  November 
6,  1906,  Mr.  Cooley,  the  able  Commissioner  who  had  succeeded 
me,  resigned  to  take  an  important  position  in  the  Department 
of  Justice  and  Mr.  John  A.  Mcllhenny  of  Louisiana,  one  of 
Roosevelt's  "Rough  Riders"  in  the  Spanish  War,  was  ap- 
pointed on  the  Commission. 

In  1905,  Charles  J.  Bonaparte,  chairman  of  the  Council  of 
the  League,  was  made  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  from  which  office 
he  was  afterwards  transferred  to  the  position  of  Attorney 
General. 

CARL   SCHURZ 

On  May  14th,  the  League  lost  by  death  its  former  president 
and  most  distinguished  member,  Mr.  Carl  Schurz.  I  shall  not 
attempt  any  complete  characterization  of  this  eminent  man. 
While  he  and  Mr.  Curtis  advocated  the  reform  with  equal 
devotion,  their  methods  were  as  far  apart  as  the  poles.  Their 
temperaments  were  utterly  unlike.  With  Curtis  "sweetness 
and  Hght"  were  predominant,  with  Schurz  the  odor  of  brim- 
stone was  by  no  means  absent  when  there  was  some  unscrupu- 
lous foe  to  be  assailed.  The  man  who  had  taken  so  hazardous 
and  so  creditable  a  part  in  the  Liberal  movement  in  Germany 
in  1848  brought  with  him  to  America  a  courageous  and  mili- 
tant spirit  which  was  now  placed  wholly  at  the  service  of  his 
adopted  country.  He  was  the  ablest  controversialist  of  his 
time,  matchless  in  the  warfare  of  debate.  His  English  was  as 
fine  as  that  of  any  native  American.  He  chose  his  position 
philosophically  and  sustained  it  by  an  array  of  facts  and 
arguments  that  made  it  overwhelming.  In  statement  indeed 
he  sometimes  exaggerated  and  spoke  often  in  superlatives. 
Yet  he  was  always  impressive  and  convincing.  His  wit  was 
not  the  delicate  and  playful  humor  of  Curtis  but  often  grim 
satire  and  biting  sarcasm.  His  scathing  irony  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  his  second  letter  to  Senator  Gallinger,  October  i ,  1897,  in 
the  Exeter  Newsletter  (see  Schurz's  Letters  and  Speeches,  v., 


206  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1904 

428)  is  as  fine  as  anything  in  Junius.  His  critics  likened  him 
to  Mephistopheles,  and  there  were  instances  of  mocking 
raillery  in  his  speeches  and  his  behavior  which  made  the 
comparison  not  an  incredible  one.  ^ 

His  learning,  especially  his  knowledge  of  history,  sociology, 
and  economics,  was  extensive  and  profound.  His  biographical 
articles  on  Lincoln  and  Webster  and  his  Life  of  Henry  Clay 
were  masterly.  He  cared  little  for  popularity  and  everything 
for  principle.  Indeed  his  devotion  to  his  own  philosophic 
conclusions  was  absolute,  and  at  times  (as  in  his  support  of 
Bryan  upon  the  issue  of  anti-imperialism  in  1900)  it  carried 
him  to  lengths  which  many  of  his  friends  regretted.  Though 
his  personal  feelings  were  strong,  his  chief  aim  was  to  serve 
his  country  and  mankind,  and  he  will  remain  in  history  as  an 
illustrious  figure  in  the  social  movements  and  political  con- 
troversies of  his  time. 

^An  illustration  of  this  appears  in  his  own  reminiscences  (vol.ii.,  pp.82, 
83).  He  had  been  nominated  for  Lieut.-Govemor  of  Wisconsin  and  was 
beset  by  office  seekers  who  sought  his  recommendations.  There  were 
several  applicants  for  each  place.  He  asked  each  of  them  to  meet  him  at 
an  appointed  hour  in  his  hotel.  The  room  was  crowded.  None  knew  that 
the  others  were  coming  and  he  thus  addressed  them:  "You  are  all  worthy 
citizens  fully  deserving  what  you  seek.  You  will  admit  I  cannot  make  any- 
invidious  discrimination  between  you.  All  I  can  do  therefore  in  justice  and 
fairness  is  to  recommend  you  all  for  the  places  you  seek  on  a  footing  of 
perfect  equality. "  There  was  silence,  then  laughter  and  an  early  adjourn- 
ment.   ' '  But, ' '  he  addSj ' '  I  fear  I  made  some  enemies  on  that  occasion. ' ' 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  TAFT  CAMPAIGN — CHARGES  OF  COERCION 

As  the  second  administration  of  President  Roosevelt  drew 
to  a  close  the  question  of  the  political  activities  of  office- 
holders became  more  and  more  prominent  and  the  President 
was  not  content,  as  some  of  his  predecessors  had  been,  to 
enjoin  upon  these  officials  that  they  must  not  take  an  active 
part  in  political  work  and  then  to  let  these  injunctions  remain 
unheeded  and  partisan  activity  go  on  as  before.  He  encouraged 
the  Commission  to  make  investigations  and  there  were  a 
ntunber  of  removals,  suspensions,  and  reductions  in  pay  of 
those  who  violated  the  rules.  Among  the  officers  removed 
were  the  Second  Assistant  Postmaster-General  and  the 
Collectors  of  Customs  in  West  Virginia  and  in  Port  Huron, 
Michigan.  This  was  the  first  time  when  such  pimishments 
were  inflicted  during  a  political  campaign. 

Long  before  the  time  of  the  Republican  Convention,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  had  openly  expressed  his  preference  for  Mr.  Taft 
as  the  candidate  of  that  party  and  no  doubt  many  office- 
holders as  well  as  others  were  influenced  by  this  fact  to  sup- 
port the  President's  choice.  He  was  bitterly  attacked  by  the 
friends  of  the  other  candidates  as  well  as  by  the  Democrats. 
It  was  said  that  he  was  virtually  selecting  the  President  and 
that  he  was  coercing  his  own  subordinates.  Early  in  January 
an  Indianapolis  paper,  supporting  the  candidacy  of  Mr. 
Fairbanks,  accused  President  Roosevelt  of  using  the  federal 
patronage  to  secure  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Taft  and  named 
particular  post  offices  in  which  it  was  charged  that  this  was 
done. 

I  at  once  went  to  Washington,  had  an  interview  with  the 

207 


208  THE  TAFT  CAMPAIGN 

President  and  Mr.  Taft  upon  this  subject,  and  learned  that 
the  charge  was  untrue.  Upon  my  return  home  I  heard  of 
other  articles  making  similar  accusations. 

On  January  17th,  the  Indianapolis  Star  spoke  of  the  "partial 
eclipse  of  our  redoubtable  Hoosier  reformer  Mr.  William 
Dudley  Foulke,  who  has  never  heard  of  the  entire  federal 
administration  being  harnessed  up  to  the  Taft  boom."  It 
derided  the  "  hypnosis  that  had  overtaken  valiant  civil  service 
reformers." 

What  do  they  think  about  the  lash  from  the  White  House  that  is 
being  laid  about  the  backs  of  federal  employees  in  Washington  and 
to  the  furthest  corners  of  the  nation  to  make  them  use  the  govern- 
ment's time  and  money  to  impose  the  President's  personal  choice  upon 
the  National  Convention  six  months  hence?  They  are  dumb.  They 
have  never  heard  of  it. 

I  enclosed  this  article  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  which 
he  instantly  replied: 

Will  you  produce  the  name  of  a  single  man  whom  I  have  coerced  or 
influenced?  Will  you  give  me  the  name  of  any  official  who  has  been 
controlled  by  the  threat  or  implied  threat  of  dismissal  or  from  whom 
I  have  demanded  support  for  Taft?  You  cannot  do  so,  and  as  you 
cannot  why  do  you  not  repeat  this  challenge  to  the  newspaper  in 
question  ?  Assert  that  their  words  are  absolutely  false  and  challenge 
them  to  make  good. 

I  rejoiced  at  the  opportunity  and  at  once  wrote  to  the  Star 
repeating  the  challenge.  My  letter  was  published  on  January 
24th,  with  an  editorial  comment  in  which  it  said  that  it  was 
unfortunate  "that  my  activity  had  not  been  more  generally 
known."  But  my  inquiries  were  unanswered  and  I  asked, 
"Am  I  not,  therefore,  compelled  by  your  own  silence  to  con- 
sider your  charges  against  the  President  as  absolutely  devoid 
of  foundation?" 

This  letter  the  Star  would  not  publish  though  it  continued 
to  repeat  its  general  charges.  In  view  of  these  reiterated 
complaints  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  detailed  statement  of  the 
President's  appointments,  the  men  by  whom  they  were  re- 
commended, his  reasons  and  the  principles  on  which  he  had 


CHARGES  OF  COERCION  209 

acted  in  making  them,  as  well  as  a  statement  in  regard  to 
coercion,  would  be  the  best  method  of  exhibiting  the  facts, 
and  on  February  5th  I  wrote  to  the  President  to  that  effect. 
On  February  7th  he  answered: 

My  dear  Foulke:  The  statement  that  I  have  used  the  offices  in  the 
efiEort  to  nominate  any  presidential  candidate  is  both  false  and  malicious. 
It  is  the  usual  imaginative  invention  which  flows  from  a  desire  to  say 
something  injurious.  Remember  that  those  now  making  this  accusation 
were  busily  engaged  two  months  ago  in  asserting  that  I  was  using  the 
offices  to  secure  my  own  renomination.  It  is  the  kind  of  accusation  which 
for  the  next  few  months  will  be  rife.  This  particular  slander  will  be  used 
until  exploded  and  when  exploded  those  who  have  used  it  will  promptly 
use  another.  Such  being  the  case  I  almost  wonder  whether  it  is  worth 
while  answering,  but  as  it  is  you  who  ask,  why,  the  answer  you  shall  have. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  here  gave  an  elaborate  statement  of  the 
character  of  his  appointments  and  the  principles  upon  which 
he  had  acted. ' 

Not  an  appointment  has  been  made  that  would  not  have  been  made  if 
there  had  been  no  presidential  contest  impending  and  in  no  case  has  there 
been  a  deviation  from  the  course  that  I  would  have  pursued  had  none  of 
those  who  actually  are  candidates  for  the  nomination  been  candidates:  nor 
has  a  single  officeholder  been  removed  or  threatened  with  removal  or 
coerced  in  any  way  to  secure  his  support  for  any  presidential  candidate. 
In  fact,  the  only  coercion  that  I  have  attempted  to  exercise  was  to 
forbid  the  officeholders  from  pushing  my  own  renomination.^ 

»  He  stated  that  he  had  made  within  eleven  months  1352  appointments 
subject  to  confirmation  by  the  Senate.  Appointments  in  the  diplomatic, 
consular,  and  Indian  services  were  made  without  regard  to  politics  and  in 
judicial  appointments  he  had  conducted  independent  inquiries  through 
prominent  members  of  the  bench  or  bar.  But  in  the  great  bulk  of  the 
offices,  amounting  to  about  1250,  he  normally  accepted  the  suggestions  of 
the  Congressman  of  the  locality,  reserving  the  right  to  disregard  these  if  he 
considered  the  men  unfit.  In  the  South  he  selected  a  large  number  of 
Democrats.  In  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Illinois,  Indiana,  and  Wisconsin 
an  enormous  majority  of  appointees  were  in  each  case  in  favor  of  the  presi- 
dential candidate  from  the  State.  This  had  not  been  true  in  Ohio  and  his 
interference  in  patronage  matters  in  Ohio  had  been  limited  to  insisting,  as 
he  would  insist  anywhere  else,  that  opposition  to  the  administration  should 
not  be  considered  as  a  necessary  prerequisite  to  holding  the  commission  of 
the  President. 

'  More  than  a  year  later  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  League  on  Decem- 
14 


210  THE  TAFT  CAMPAIGN 

As  time  wore  on  the  charge  that  President  Roosevelt  was 
coercing  his  subordinates  gradually  crystallized  into  the 
criticism  that  it  was  very  wrong  for  him  to  declare  any  pre- 
ference whatever  among  the  candidates,  trying  to  dictate 
the  nomination  of  his  successor.  "He  ought  to  remain  quiet 
and  let  the  party  choose."  "The  party  is  wiser  than  any  man 
in  it,"  etc.  In  answer  to  this  criticism  I  spoke  at  many 
places  to  the  following  effect : 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  a  member  of  the  Republican  party. 
He  was  the  leader  of  that  party.  If  he  were  to  remain  silent 
whose  duty  was  it  to  speak?  Was  it  to  be  only  the  selfish 
interests  that  were  demanding  the  power  to  work  their  will? 
Were  they  to  be  the  only  influences  entitled  to  be  heard?  It 
was  true  that  hundreds  of  thousands  would  follow  where  he 
led  because  they  believed  that  he  would  lead  aright  and  that 
he  had  better  knowledge  than  they.  Why  not?  That  was  the 
privilege  and  prerogative  of  leadership. 

He  had  done  a  great  work  for  "the  plain  people"  against 
the  tyranny  of  capital,  the  debauchery  of  spoilscraft,  and  the 
abuses  of  predatory  wealth.  He  had  been  the  leader  in  the 
work  of  regeneration.  He  caused  to  be  established  the  De- 
partment of  Commerce  and  Labor,  and  the  Bureau  of  Cor- 
porations, which  required  publicity  for  the  acts  of  the  gigantic 
combinations  that  were  oppressing  the  public.  He  procured 
the  enactment  of  the  pure  food  law  and  government  inspection 
of  the  great  sources  of  our  meat  supplies.  He  secured  an 
investigation  of  the  rebates  granted  by  the  railroads  to  mo- 

ber  9,  1909,  after  the  political  prejudices  of  the  campaign  of  1908  had 
become  extinguished,  the  report  of  the  Council  of  the  League  contained 
the  following: 

"Evidence  was  wholly  lacking  to  substantiate  the  charges  as  to  coercion 
of  officeholders  by  the  President  in  order  to  secure  the  nomination  of  a 
particular  candidate.  President  Roosevelt  allowed  his  appointment  lists 
for  a  considerable  time  prior  to  the  convention  to  be  examined  and  not  only 
were  the  appointments  made  in  the  usual  manner  on  the  recommendation 
of  Senators  and  Congressmen  and  others  claiming  the  patronage  of  offices 
involved  but  sometimes  those  on  whose  recommendation  the  appointments 
were  made  were  notoriously  opposed  to  the  candidate  whom  President 
Roosevelt  was  known  to  favor." 


RESULTS  OF  ROOSEVELT'S  ADMINISTRATION    211 

nopolies,  and  instituted  the  prosecutions  by  which  they ^  were 
compelled  to  halt  in  their  evil  career. 

He  secured  the  passage  of  the  rate  bill  preventing  unjust 
discriminations  by  those  who  controlled  the  great  arteries  of 
oiiT  commerce.  He  promoted  the  peace  of  the  world  by  the 
settlement  of  the  great  war  between  Russia  and  Japan.  He 
administered  the  government  of  the  Philippines  for  the  benefit 
of  the  inhabitants,  conducting  the  natives  by  educational 
methods  into  a  higher  civilization.  He  began  the  construc- 
tion of  the  Panama  Canal.  He  maintained  an  efi&cient  and 
peaceful  government  for  the  Cuban  Republic  under  our 
protection. 

And  now  the  question  arose:  Who  was  to  succeed  him  in 
carrying  out  the  measures  he  had  inaugurated?  He  had 
declined  a  renomination  and  a  reelection,  but  what  man  in 
his  place  could  be  indifferent  to  the  future  of  his  country? 
If  he  were  to  hold  aloof  and  say  in  effect,  **  I  do  not  care  who 
will  succeed  me,  "he  would  be  leaving  his  great  work  half 
accomplished.  He  had  preeminently  the  right  to  speak,  and 
those  who  believed  in  him  would  not  be  slow  to  accept  his 
counsels  as  to  the  choice  of  a  successor. 

When  the  Republican  convention  was  held  in  June  there 
was  a  large  number  of  officeholders  among  the  delegates, 
especially  from  the  South,  but  these  officeholders  were  greatly 
divided.  A  considerable  proportion  of  them  advocated  other 
candidates  than  Mr.  Taft,  who  was  however  nominated  by  a 
large  majority.  ^ 

RESULTS   OF   ROOSEVELT'S  ADMINISTRATION   ON  THE   CIVIL 

SERVICE 

The  report  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  on  November 
16,  1908,  presented  in  glowing  colors  the  great  advance  made 
in  the  classified  system  under  President  Roosevelt.  The 
number  of  competitive  positions  had  increased  from  110,000 
on  September  14,  1901,  to  206,000  in  addition  to  the  laborers 
now  registered. 

But  more  was  to  come.     Only  two  weeks  after  the  date  of 


212  THE  TAFT  CAMPAIGN 

this  report  President  Roosevelt  after  consulting  with  his 
successor,  Mr.  Taft,  included  15,488  fourth-class  postmasters, 
being  all  those  in  New  England,  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  and  Wisconsin. 
The  classified  service  had  now  grown  under  his  administra- 
tion by  more  than  1 16,000  places,  a  very  much  greater  increase 
than  during  any  other  similar  period.  When  he  came  into 
office  only  46.2  per  cent  of  the  federal  civil  service  was  com- 
petitive, and  when  he  left  it  was  66  per  cent  or  two  thirds  of 
the  whole. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION 

Mr.  Taft's  personal  inclinations  were  just  as  friendly 
toward  the  merit  system  as  those  of  Mr.  Roosevelt.  It  had 
been  established  in  the  Philippine  Islands  while  he  was  the 
head  of  the  government  there  and  had  been  conscientiously 
administered  both  in  those  islands  and  in  the  War  Department 
of  which  he  afterwards  became  the  chief.  It  was  with  his 
concurrence  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  extended  the  rules  to  the 
fourth-class  post  offices  north  of  the  Ohio  and  east  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  he  completed  this  work  at  a  later  period  by  in- 
cluding the  remaining  fourth-class  postmasters  within  the 
competitive  service.  He  had  caused  it  to  be  understood  that 
he  would  veto  the  Census  bill  if  it  provided  for  the  patronage 
appointment  of  Census  clerks,  and  he  issued,  early  in  his  ad- 
ministration, a  strict  injunction  to  supervisors  and  entmiera- 
tors  of  the  Census  to  refrain  from  all  political  activity  under 
pain  of  dismissal.  On  September  30,  1910,  he  extended  the 
classification  to  2237  assistant  postmasters  in  first-  and  second- 
class  post  offices,  and  to  some  1386  clerks  in  these  offices  which 
had  not  theretofore  been  included.  He  repeatedly  advocated 
in  his  messages  to  Congress  the  extension  of  the  system  to 
presidential  postmasters  and  indeed  to  all  administrative 
officers  of  every  kind  except  the  very  small  number  who  deter- 
mined the  political  conduct  of  the  government.  He  also 
favored  legislation  to  give  a  secure  tenure  during  efficiency 
for  all  purely  administrative  officials.  He  kept  politics  out 
of  the  consular  service  and  extended  the  principles  of  the 
merit  system  to  subordinate  diplomatic  appointments.^ 

*  This  was  done  by  two  orders  November  26,  1909,  and  December  23, 
19 10,  providing  for  entrance  and  transfer  examinations  and  for  promotions 

213 


214  THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION 

By  his  courageous  veto  of  one  of  the  great  appropriation 
bills  in  the  summer  of  191 2  he  prevented  the  fastening  on 
the  service  of  a  proposed  tenure-of-office  act  which  would 
have  immediately  injected  politics  into  the  departments  in 
Washington. 

But  in  Mr.  Taft's  administration  of  the  civil  service  law 
there  appeared  just  a  little  of  the  same  quality  which  led  to 
disaster  in  regard  to  other  public  questions.  He  was  of  a 
generous  nature  but  not  always  a  good  judge  of  men  and  he 
was  not  infrequently  misled  by  those  around  him.  An  instance 
of  this  occurred  very  early  in  his  term  when  he  asked  for  the 
resignation  of  Mr.  Henry  R.  Greene,  one  of  the  Civil  Service 
Commissioners.  Mr.  Greene  had  been  an  admirable  officer, 
was  well  acquainted  with  the  workings  of  the  system,  and  had 
done  everything  possible  to  enforce  the  law  and  promote  the 
principles  of  the  reform.  In  doing  this  he  had  made  enemies. 
These  enemies  complained  to  the  President  and  he  believed 
them.  He  put  in  place  of  Mr.  Greene,  on  May  5,  1909,  Mr. 
James  T.  Williams,  Jr.,  a  young  newspaper  man  whose  ex- 
perience and  knowledge  of  the  sj^stem  was  by  no  means  as 
complete  as  that  of  the  man  he  supplanted.' 

An  unfortunate  exception  to  Mr.  Taft's  general  attitude  to- 
ward the  civil  service  was  shown  in  his  "Norton  letter."  A 
number  of  Progressive  Congressmen  had  given  offense  to  the 
President  by  opposition  to  his  policies  in  regard  to  the  tariff 
and  other  questions  and  on  September  15,  1910,  the  President's 
secretary,  Mr.  Norton,  wrote  to  a  leader  in  Iowa:  "While 
Republican  legislation  pending  in  Congress  was  opposed  by 
certain  Republicans,  the  President  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to  the 


for  merit  as  shown  by  records  of  efficiency,  and  on  December  7,  191 1,  he 
recommended  to  Congress  the  enactment  of  a  law  providing  for  such 
examinations. 

» Within  a  few  weeks  however  Mr.  Williams  resigned  on  account  of  ill 
health  and  on  May  26,  1909,  Wm.  R.  Washburn  was  made  Commissioner. 
He  had  risen  from  a  subordinate  position  in  the  Commission  where  he  had 
been  first  an  examiner  and  later  at  the  head  of  the  Philippine  Civil  Service 
Board.  He  was  thoroughly  qualified  for  this  new  position  which  he  filled 
to  general  satisfaction. 


THE  NEAL  CASE  215 

party  and  to  the  country  to  withhold  patronage  from  certain 
Senators  and  Congressmen  who  seemed  to  be  in  opposition  to  the 
administration's  efforts  to  carry  out  the  promises  of  the  party 
platform. ' '  This  letter  became  pubHc  in  an  unexpected  manner 
and  was  widely  criticized  as  an  attempt  to  use  public  offices  to 
influence  legislation.  It  seemed  to  mean  in  substance,  "Vote 
as  I  want  in  these  matters  or  you  shall  have  no  patronage  to 
distribute,"  which  is  spoils  doctrine  pure  and  simple.  Senator 
Bristow  of  Kansas  and  other  "insurgents"  were  "punished" 
in  this  way. 

President  Taft  was  also  unfortunate  in  another  matter. 
The  entire  force  of  post  office  inspectors  had  been  put  under 
civil  service  rules  and  these  positions  were  to  be  filled  by  pro- 
motion, but  now  Mr.  Robert  S.  Sharp,  an  office  seeker  and 
political  organizer,  was  excepted  from  examination  and  ap- 
pointed chief  inspector  and  after  his  appointment,  instead  of 
attending  to  his  official  duties  he  remained  long  in  Tennessee 
organizing  the  political  forces  under  his  control. 

Moreover  there  was  a  certain  laxity  in  the  enforcement  of 
the  rules  during  Mr.  Taft's  administration.  Thus  the  Com- 
mission's report  shows  that  during  the  year  ending  June,  191 1, 
temporary  appointments  had  increased  more  than  three  thou- 
sand and  adds : 

A  tendency  exists  on  the  part  of  some  appointing  oJBBcers  to  continue  the 
service  of  temporary  employees  either  out  of  sympathy  for  individuals  or 
because  of  the  supposed  needs  of  the  service.  If  the  appointing  officers 
had  been  keyed  up  to  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  need  of  strictly  enforcing 
the  law  such  laxity  would  hardly  have  existed. 

This  same  report  reveals  that  in  some  cases  there  was  long 
and  unnecessary  delay  in  punishing  delinquents,  for  the  Com- 
mission observes,  "Allowing  a  year  or  two  to  pass  before  action 
is  taken  upon  a  distinct  offense  is  manifestly  inimical  to  good 
administration." 

THE  NEAL  CASE 

In  one  important  case  which  I  personally  examined,  this 
long  and  unnecessary  delay  was  attributable  to  the  President 


2i6  THE   TAFT  ADMINISTRATION 

himself.  This  was  the  case  of  Elam  Neal,  internal  revenue 
collector  at  Indianapolis.  In  November,  191 1,  I  received 
information  that  Collector  Neal  had,  as  far  back  as  1906, 
coerced  his  employees  into  making  political  contributions  by 
giving  favorable  assignments  to  his  subordinate  gangers  and 
storekeepers  who  had  contributed  to  the  Republican  campaign 
fund  and  by  laying  off  or  giving  undesirable  assignments  to 
those  who  had  declined;  that  similar  discrimination  had  been 
shown  in  favor  of  those  who  contributed  on  behalf  of  the 
collector's  candidate  in  the  Republican  primaries  in  1908, 
and  that  the  Civil  Service  Commission  had  investigated  the 
case  and  found  him  guilty,  ^  saying  in  their  report  to  President 
Taft  in  April,  1909:  "The  attempt  which  is  shown  to  have 
been  made  by  Collector  Neal  to  coerce  his  subordinates  who 
are  in  the  classified  civil  service  into  making  political  con- 
tributions is  something  which  attacks  one  of  the  very  basic 
principles  of  the  civil  service  system. " 

The  Commission  recommended  that  Mr.  Neal  be  suspended 
without  pay  for  six  months. 

» It  seems  that  early  in  February,  1909,  the  case  was  brought  to  the 
attention  of  the  Commission,  which  at  once  investigated  it,  Commissioner 
Henry  F.  Greene  going  personally  to  Indiana  for  that  purpose.  He  found 
that  immediately  after  the  campaign  of  1906  gaugers  Wells,  Schooley  and 
James  were  reduced  to  positions  of  storekeepers,  having  failed  to  contribute. 
James  was  assigned  to  Hammond,  an  undesirable  situation  far  from  his 
home.  Those  who  contributed  kept  their  good  positions  and  some  were 
promoted.  Collector  Neal  admitted  that  he  had  furnished  a  list  of  em- 
ployees in  his  district  to  the  Republican  State  Committee  and  later  had 
received  from  some  member  of  the  committee  a  list  of  those  who  had 
contributed  which  he  gave  to  his  chief  office  deputy  who  made  the  assign- 
ments. Neal  denied  the  discrimination  and  said  the  list  was  furnished 
merely  as  a  matter  of  news  and  personal  interest ! 

In  February,  1908,  there  was  a  primary  campaign  for  governor.  Schooley, 
James  and  Wells  supported  Watson;  the  collector  supported  C.  W.  Miller. 
Schooley  saw  the  collector  to  complain  about  his  assignments.  Neal  told 
him  that  "loyalty  meant  something  more  than  official  loyalty  and  that  it 
was  about  time  for  him  to  find  out  that  there  was  a  new  collector  and  a 
new  administration." 

In  the  final  campaign  of  1908,  these  gaugers  having  learned  their  lesson 
all  contributed  to  the  campaign  fund  and  the  assignments  of  every  one  of 
them  were  changed  for  the  better. 


THE  NEAL  CASE  217 

The  President  concurred  in  this  conclusion  and  so  did  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  wrote  to  the  Commission  on 
July  30,  1909,  that  the  President  had  authorized  him  to  say 
that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  adopt  its  recommendation. 
Yet  although  the  matter  was  repeatedly  called  to  his  attention 
the  President  utterly  failed  for  two  years  and  eight  months  to 
take  any  action  in  the  case!^ 

Finally  in  January,  191 2,  he  wrote:  "It  is  sufficient  to  in- 
vite Mr.  Neal's  attention  to  the  history  of  the  case,  to  the 
leniency  that  has  been  shown  him,  and  to  the  fact  that  the 
office  as  now  administered  with  his  full  attention  to  the  same 
is  in  a  condition  that  must  continue  or  his  removal  must 
follow." 

Thus  after  three  years*  delay  Neal  was  finally  permitted  to 
continue  in  office  and  escape  wholly  unpunished!^ 

» A  rule  the  Commission  adopted  at  the  President's  request,  that  while 
cases  were  pendjing  the  files  could  not  be  inspected,  also  led  inevitably  to 
the  concealment  of  abuses.  In  this  case  the  fact  that  a  crime  had  been 
committed  was  concealed  for  nearly  three  years  by  the  President's  rule  and 
his  delay. 

» The  efforts  of  the  Commission  to  secure  some  disposition  of  the  case 
by  the  President  were  frequent  and  pressing. 

On  April  25,  19 10,  the  Commission  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  nothing  had  been  done.  On 
December  28,  1910,  the  Commission  again  earnestly  called  the  Secretary's 
attention  to  the  case.  "It  is  the  view  of  the  Commission  that  the  long 
delay  in  the  Neal  case,  which  will  be  two  years  old  in  February,  191 1,  is  to 
the  detriment  of  the  service.*' 

Nearly  six  months  more  elapsed.  On  Jime  7th,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  wrote  to  President  Black  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission: 
"I  also  beg  to  advise  you  and  the  Commission  in  confidence  that  the  case 
of  Elam  Neal  of  Indianapolis  will  be  disposed  of  in  accordance  with  your 
views  without  further  delay."  Yet  still  the  months  dragged  on.  In 
November  I  went  to  Washington  and  interviewed  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  who  did  not  at  any  time  claim  that  Mr.  Neal  was  not  guilty  of 
the  charges  made  against  him. 

On  January  2,  1912,  the  President  wrote  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
as  follows: 

*'  I  have  not  examined  fully  the  papers  in  the  case  of  the  complaint  against 
Collector  Neal,  but  I  have  examined  the  correspondence  with  the  Com- 
missioner of  Internal  Revenue  and  remember  to  have  examined  with  much 


2i8  THE  TAFT  ADMINISTRATION 

At  the  close  of  Mr.  Taft's  administration  a  larger  percentage 
of  the  executive  civil  service  was  in  the  competitive  class  than 
at  any  previous  time  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  service 
was  as  efficient  or  as  free  from  political  influence  as  during 
the  administration  of  President  Roosevelt.  In  191 2,  the 
influence  of  federal  officeholders  was  strongly  felt  in  the 
election  of  delegates  to  the  national  convention  which  met  in 
Chicago  and  nominated  Mr.  Taft.  Evidently  this  convention 
did  not  represent  the  real  wishes  of  the  Republican  voters 
since  Mr.  Roosevelt  as  the  Progressive  nominee  had  an  over- 
whelming plurality  among  the  votes  afterwards  cast  at  the 
election  in  opposition  to  the  Democratic  candidate.  When  the 
election  came  on  Mr.  Wilson,  the  Democratic  candidate,  was 
chosen  by  a  large  majority  of  the  electoral  vote,  Mr.  Roose- 
velt was  second,  while  Mr.  Taft  was  third  upon  the  list,  receiv- 
ing the  electoral  votes  of  only  two  States,  Vermont  and  Utah. 

care  the  complaints  against  Collector  Neal  in  1909.  It  did  not  then  seem  to 
me  that  he  ought  to  be  dismissed  but  I  thought  he  ought  to  be  fined  in  some 
way." 

Now  the  only  way  Neal  could  be  fined  would  be  in  a  criminal  prosecution 
for  violation  of  the  civil  service  law  and  the  President's  words,  if  they 
meant  anything,  meant  that  Neal  ought  to  be  criminally  prosecuted  and 
punished  for  an  ofi&cial  act  and  yet  retain  his  office  undisturbed  I 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CIVIL  SERVICE  IN  STATES  AND  MUNICIPALITIES 

The  federal  civil  service  has  been  the  theme  of  most  of  the 
preceding  chapters,  but  during  the  years  which  elapsed  since 
the  Pendleton  law  was  enacted,  progress  had  been  made  in  the 
introduction  and  development  of  the  competitive  system  in  a 
considerable  number  of  States  and  in  a  very  large  number  of 
the  cities  of  the  country.  ^ 

Wherever  the  system  was  submitted  to  popular  suffrage 
it  was  approved  by  an  overwhelming  vote.  The  people  of 
Chicago  favored  it  by  a  majority  of  over  50,000;  in  Illinois, 
the  question,  "Shall  the  next  General  Assembly  enact  a  com- 
prehensive civil  service  law?"  was  carried  by  a  majority  of 
over  290,000;  and  Ohio  adopted  the  civil  service  provisions  in 
her  constitution  by  a  majority  of  over  100,000. 

In  the  great  movement  toward  the  Commission  and  the 
Commission  Manager  forms  of  city  government  civil  service 
provisions  were  very  generally  incorporated,  though  these 
varied  greatly  in  excellence,  some  of  them  being  quite  inejffec- 
tive. 

It  was  on  November  15,  1910,  while  this  movement  was 
going  on  that  I  was  elected  president  of  the  National  Mtmicipal 

'  New  York  passed  a  civil  service  law  in  1883  (the  same  year  the  federal 
statute  was  enacted),  Massachusetts  in  1884,  Wisconsin  and  Illinois  in  1905, 
Colorado  and  New  Jersey  in  1907,  Ohio  in  19 12  by  constitutional  provision, 
Connecticut  in  1913,  and  Kansas  in  19 15. 

In  all  the  foregoing  States  as  well  as  in  many  others  there  were  laws  either 
authorizing  or  directing  competitive  methods  to  be  applied  to  some  or  all 
of  the  cities  therein.  Under  these  provisions  the  cities  began  very  generally 
to  adopt  the  merit  system.  In  19 10  it  had  been  extended  to  about  100  of 
these  and  in  19 11  to  217,  and  the  growth  has  continued  since  that  time. 

319 


220  STATES  AND  MUNICIPALITIES 

League  at  its  annual  meeting  in  Buffalo  and  I  began  to  look  at 
the  civil  service  question  more  largely  from  this  new  angle  of 
State  and  municipal  development,  especially  the  latter. 

It  was  easy  to  see  that  some  modifications  of  the  federal 
civil  service  law  were  necessary  in  applying  the  merit  system 
to  cities.  The  Pendleton  act  was  of  the  most  general  charac- 
ter, leaving  the  development  of  the  system  mostly  to  the 
President  and  the  Commission.  It  would  be  dangerous  how- 
ever to  adopt  the  same  plan  in  cities,  where  the  people  when 
this  reform  was  introduced  were  commonly  quite  ignorant  of 
the  necessary  provisions  for  eliminating  patronage.  Where 
this  is  so  these  provisions  have  to  be  prescribed  in  considerable 
detail  in  the  law  itself.  The  rules  adopted  by  the  federal 
commission  were  to  a  large  extent  the  models  for  State  and 
city  laws.  Moreover  it  had  been  found  that  where  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  law  in  cities  was  subject  to  State  control 
as  in  New  York  and  Massachusetts  the  result  had  been  more 
satisfactory  than  where  the  whole  system  had  been  under  the 
exclusive  control  of  local  civil  service  commissions.  These 
commissions  were  generally  appointed  and  removed  by  the 
political  authority  (that  is  the  mayor  or  council)  of  the  city 
and  the  rules  which  they  adopted  had  to  be  approved  by  such 
authority.  Thus  the  whole  administration  of  the  law  became 
subject  to  the  very  authority  which  it  was  designed  to  restrain. 
More  independence  was  necessary  for  the  civil  service  com- 
mission and  this  could  be  given  by  making  it  subject  to  the 
supervision  not  of  the  city  authorities  but  of  a  State  com- 
mission. Moreover  the  commissioners  ought  to  be  appointed 
for  overlapping  terms  to  ensure  continuity  and  experience, 
and  they  should  be  removable  for  cause  only  and  after  a 
hearing,  so  as  to  be  as  far  as  possible  free  from  the  control  of 
the  political  power  which  appointed  them. 

Our  National  Municipal  League  devoted  a  considerable 
portion  of  its  activities  to  promoting  the  adoption  of  effective 
civil  service  reform  laws  for  municipalities.  During  the 
summer  of  191 2  this  League,  which  had  been  invited  to  hold 
its  annual  meeting  at  Los  Angeles  by  the  mayor  and  council 
of  that  city  to  consider  the  provisions  of  a  new  charter  then 


STATES  AND  MUNICIPALITIES  221 

under  consideration,  devoted  a  considerable  portion  of  a  ses- 
sion of  three  days  to  the  question  of  expert  city  management 
and  civil  service  reform  as  a  means  of  obtaining  it.  I  took 
this  subject  as  the  theme  of  my  annual  address  and  after 
setting  forth  the  need  of  experts  and  the  way  in  which  they 
should  be  secured,  I  insisted  that  the  charter  ought  to  provide 
that  under  the  commissioners  chosen  to  manage  the  city 
practically  every  place  should  be  filled  by  experts  chosen  by 
competitive  methods  without  reference  to  any  kind  of  politics 
and  insisted  that  the  fewer  the  exceptions  the  better  the  result. ' 

It  is  curious  to  note  in  this  connection  that  with  the  gradual 
development  of  the  competitive  system  the  ideas  of  the  public 
and  of  civil  service  reformers  in  regard  to  it  also  developed. 
It  used  to  be  said  that  the  system  could  not  apply  to  a  con- 
siderable class  of  public  servants ;  for  instance,  not  to  the  labor 
service,  where  examinations  were  impracticable;  nor  to  private 
secretaries  and  confidential  agents,  where  personal  selection 
was  necessary ;  nor  to  places  involving  pecuniary  responsibility 
since  the  superior  officer  should  choose  the  men  for  whose 
acts  he  would  be  liable;  nor  to  places  requiring  expert  pro- 
fessional or  administrative  qualifications,  since  the  best  men 
would  not  apply. 

But  one  by  one  all  these  exceptions  are  now  successfully 
eliminated.  Labor  registration  produces  better  results  than 
the  old  system ;  in  confidential  places  the  confidence  (which  is 
due  to  the  government  and  not  to  the  superior)  is  secured 
better  by  competitive  tests  and  by  probation  than  by  patron- 
age; official  bonds  protect  the  superior  in  cases  of  financial 

'  A  joint  committee  of  the  National  Municipal  League  and  the  National 
Civil  Service  Reform  League  to  consider  the  selection  and  retention  of 
experts  in  office  presented  a  report  at  this  meeting  in  accordance  with  the 
foregoing  principles  which  met  with  general  approval. 

This  report  was  afterwards  presented  to  the  annual  meeting  of  the 
National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  held  at  Milwaukee  December  5 
and  6,  1912,  and  was  approved  by  that  body  also. 

At  that  meeting  I  delivered  an  address  showing  in  a  practical  way 
the  need  of  expert  service  in  city  government,  the  kinds  of  competitive 
examinations  used  to  secure  it,  and  the  places  to  which  it  could  be 
applied. 


222  STATES  AND  MUNICIPALITIES 

responsibility;  and  expert  professional  and  administrative 
places  of  high  grade  are  now  filled  far  more  successfully  by  the 
competitive  system  than  by  the  political  system  which  it 
superseded.  For  such  places  there  is  no  pedagogical  examina- 
tion, but  a  competitive  investigation  is  made  of  the  education 
and  experience  of  the  respective  applicants,  and  experts  of  the 
highest  character  are  called  in  to  grade  them  in  the  order  of 
merit.  When  such  places  as  the  librarian  of  the  Chicago  Public 
Library,  the  superintendent  of  streets  of  Philadelphia,  super- 
intendent of  the  S5n*acuse  Institution  for  Feeble  Minded 
Children,  superintendents  of  Indian  reservations  and  other 
similar  positions  can  be  thus  successfully  filled  it  can  no  longer 
be  said  that  the  method  is  not  practical.' 

In  1913  I  was  made  chairman  of  a  committee  of  the  National 
Municipal  League  to  prepare  a  model  charter  setting  forth 
what  we  considered  the  best  form  of  government  for  the 
average  American  city.* 

Much  labor  was  expended  upon  this  charter  and  it  was 
nearly  three  years  before  the  work  was  completed  and  ap- 
proved by  a  referendum  of  the  League.  The  form  of  govern- 
ment proposed  provided  for  the  election  of  a  council  of  a  small 
number  of  members  nominated  by  petition  and  elected  by  a 
non-partisan  ballot.  The  council  was  to  select  a  city  manager 
solely  on  the  basis  of  his  executive  and  administrative  quali- 
ties and  the  choice  was  not  to  be  limited  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  city  or  State.  He  was  to  be  appointed  for  an  indefinite  pe- 
riod and  removed  by  the  council  only  upon  written  charges  and 
after  a  public  hearing.    He  was  to  be  responsible  to  the  council 

*  I  was  asked  to  discuss  this  question  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the 
National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  in  Chicago  on  December  3,  19 14. 
The  address  appears  in  the  Appendix  IX. 

"This  committee  was  composed  of  the  following  gentlemen:  M.  N. 
Baker,  Engineering  News,  New  York;  Richard  S.  Childs,  Short  Ballot 
Association,  New  York;  Prof.  John  A.  Fairlie,  University  of  Illinois; 
Mayo  Fesler,  Civic  League,  Cleveland;  Prof.  A.  R.  Hatton,  Western  Reserve 
University,  Cleveland;  Prof.  Herman  G.  James,  University  of  Texas;  A. 
Lawrence  Lowell,  President  of  Harvard  University;  Prof.  William  Bennett 
Munro,  Harvard  University;  Robert  Treat  Paine,  Boston;  Delos  F.  Wilcox, 
New  York  City,  Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  Philadelphia,  and  myself. 


THE  PROPOSED  MODEL  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  223 

for  the  proper  administration  of  all  municipal  affairs  and  was 
to  make  all  appointments  according  to  competitive  methods. 

At  the  head  of  each  administrative  department  was  a 
director  who  might  also  be  chosen  by  the  competitive  system 
if  the  city  so  determined,  and  we  provided  for  a  civil  service 
board  for  the  appointment  of  all  other  officers,  prescribing  in 
considerable  detail  its  powers  and  methods. 

The  League's  municipal  program  having  now  been  com- 
pleted and  my  own  precarious  health  forbidding  longer  con- 
tinuance in  the  work,  I  resigned  the  presidency  and  Mr. 
Lawson  Purdy  of  New  York,  an  expert  of  eminent  qualifica- 
tions upon  the  problems  of  city  finance  and  taxation  which 
were  now  coming  to  the  front,  was  elected  as  my  successor. 

THE  PROPOSED  MODEL  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW 

The  Civil  Service  Commissioners  of  the  country,  federal, 
State,  and  municipal,  had  organized  an  association  to  promote 
improved  methods  in  the  competitive  system.  This  associa- 
tion was  known  as  the  National  Assembly  of  Civil  Service 
Commissioners  and  at  a  meeting  in  New  York  in  June,  1913, 
it  had  appointed  a  committee  to  draft  a  model  law  and  invited 
the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  and  the  National 
Municipal  League  to  appoint  special  committees  to  confer 
with  its  own  committee  for  this  purpose.  The  appointments 
were  made  and  several  conferences  were  held. 

The  leading  spirit  in  the  preparation  of  this  model  law  was 
Mr.  Robert  Catherwood,  who  was  the  president  of  the  Cook 
County  (Illinois)  Commission,  and  was  also  a  member  of  the 
Council  of  the  Reform  League.  He  had  drafted  a  bill  con- 
taining some  new  and  radical  features  which  aroused  animated 
discussions. 

According  to  this  bill  the  commissioners  themselves  were 
no  longer  to  be  appointed  by  the  political  authority  of  the 
State  or  city  but  by  competitive  examinations  and  they  were 
to  hold  office  indefinitely.  The  bill  provided  that  whenever 
there  was  a  vacancy  in  the  office  of  civil  service  commissioner 
of  any  State  the  governor  should  appoint  a  special  examining 
board  of  three  persons;  first,  a  member,  secretary,  or  chief 


224  STATES  AND  MUNICIPALITIES 

examiner  of  some  civil  service  commission,  second,  a  man  who 
had  been  engaged  in  selecting  trained  employees  for  positions 
involving  professional  or  technical  skill,  and  third,  a  judge  of  a 
court  of  record.  This  board  was  to  hold  an  examination  and 
prepare  an  eligible  list  and  the  governor  was  to  appoint  the 
person  standing  highest  upon  that  list  to  the  office  of  com- 
missioner. The  State  Civil  Service  Commission  was  in  like 
manner  to  conduct  examinations  for  the  appointment  of  muni- 
cipal civil  service  commissioners.  No  commissioner  was  to  be 
removed  except  for  malfeasance,  neglect  of  duty,  or  incom- 
petence, and  only  upon  written  charges  (which  might  be  filed 
by  any  citizen)  and  after  an  opportunity  to  be  heard  by  a  trial 
board  consisting  of  two  nisi  prius  judges  and  a  third  person 
selected  by  the  two.    The  decision  of  this  board  was  to  be  final. 

The  commission  was  to  classify  the  service,  fix  salaries,  and 
prescribe  standards  and  tests  of  efficiency.  It  was  to  cause 
charges  to  be  filed  against  delinquents.  No  person  was  to  be 
removed  except  for  cause  upon  written  charges  (which  however 
might  also  be  filed  by  any  citizen  or  taxpayer).  Such  charges 
were  to  be  investigated  by  the  commission  or  by  some  trial 
board  appointed  by  that  body.    The  decision  was  to  be  final. 

There  were  various  meetings  of  committees  and  of  the 
Council  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  upon  the 
subject.  I  urged  that  at  least  one  member  of  the  commission 
should  be  appointed  by  the  executive  authority  of  the  State 
or  city,  insisting  that  there  were  still  political  duties  to  be 
performed  by  the  commission  and  that  it  was  important  to 
have  at  least  one  commissioner  appointed  for  the  performance 
of  these  duties.  I  remembered  that  when  I  was  upon  the  Civil 
Service  Commission  my  own  duties  were  mainly  political,  not 
in  a  partisan  sense,  but  for  the  purpose  of  upholding  the  law 
and  the  competitive  system  against  opponents  in  Congress, 
in  the  press,  and  elsewhere;  that  it  was  also  the  duty  of  the 
commissioners  to  advise  the  President  and  the  departments 
as  to  the  extent  and  manner  in  which  the  competitive  prin- 
ciple should  be  applied  by  the  law  and  rules. 

I  opposed  the  proposed  removal  rule  strenuously  and  while 
agreeing  to  give  the  commissioners  concurrent  power  to  remove 


THE  PROPOSED  MODEL  CIVIL  SERVICE  LAW  225 

or  discipline  delinquents  I  insisted  this  power  should  not  be 
entirely  taken  away  from  the  officers  who  were  responsible  for 
administration  and  placed  wholly  in  the  hands  of  an  inde- 
pendent official  over  whom  they  had  no  control.' 

As  a  final  result  of  our  discussions  a  provision  was  added 
that  nothing  in  the  proposed  law  should  limit  the  power  of 
any  appointing  officer  to  dismiss  a  subordinate  upon  filing 
written  reasons  and  giving  the  accused  notice  of  the  charges 
against  him  and  an  opportunity  to  answer  and  file  affidavits, 
but  that  no  trial  should  be  required  except  in  the  discretion 
of  the  officer  making  the  removal.^ 

*  A  brief  prepared  by  me  against  taking  the  power  of  removal  from  the 
appointing  officer  will  be  found  in  Appendix  X. 

^  The  Council  of  the  League  also  adopted  three  alternative  provisions 
as  to  the  manner  in  which  commissions  should  be  appointed. 

The  first  of  these  alternatives  for  a  State  commission  provided  for  the 
appointment  of  one  person  only  as  commissioner,  the  man  who  should 
stand  highest  on  a  competitive  examination  before  a  board  of  special 
examiners. 

The  second  alternative  provided  for  a  State  commission  of  three  persons 
to  be  appointed  by  the  governor  for  overlapping  terms  of  six  years. 

The  third  alternative  provided  for  a  State  commission  of  three  persons, 
one  to  be  appointed  by  the  governor  to  s<erve  during  his  term  of  office  and 
the  other  two  appointed  by  competitive  examination.  This  was  the  plan  I 
preferred. 

As  to  the  local  commissions  th^p  first  alternative  provided  for  one  com- 
missioner to  be  appointed  by  a  competitive  examination  held  by  the  State 
commission. 

The  second  alternative,  for  municipalities  having  a  population  of  250,000 
or  more,  created  a  commission  of  three  persons,  one  to  be  appointed  by  the 
chief  appointing  authority  of  the  municipality  to  serve  during  his  term  and 
the  other  two  to  be  selected  as  the  result  of  a  competitive  examination  held 
by  the  State  Civil  Service  Commission.  Local  commissioners  were  remov- 
able after  trial  by  the  State  commission. 

The  National  Municipal  League  however  was  not  willing  to  adopt  the 
principle  of  selecting  the  commission  by  competitive  examinations.  In  the 
model  charter  prepared  by  that  League  the  civil  service  board  was  to  be 
chosen  by  the  city  council  for  overlapping  terms  of  six  years  and  any 
commissioner  could  be  removed  by  a  four-fifths  vote  after  charges  and  a 
hearing.  Employees  could  be  removed  by  the  city  manager  or  by  the  head 
of  a  department  after  notice  and  opportunity  to  answer  but  no  trial  was 
required. 
B5 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

Whatever  the  inconsistencies  and  shortcomings  of  the 
various  administrations  since  the  passage  of  the  civil  service 
law,  the  classified  lists  had  been  pretty  constantly  extended. 
Only  one  backward  step  had  been  taken  and  that  was  when 
President  McKinley  had  withdrawn  from  the  competitive  ser- 
vice some  four  thousand  places  included  by  the ' '  blanket  order  " 
of  his  predecessor  Mr.  Cleveland. 

But  during  the  first  term  of  Mr.  Wilson's  administration 
there  was  again  a  period  of  reaction.  This  was  a  great  sur- 
prise to  the  advocates  of  civil  service  reform.  The  new 
President  had  declared  himself  on  many  occasions  in  strong 
and  tmmistakable  language  as  a  friend  of  the  merit  system 
and  at  the  time  of  his  election  he  was  one  of  the  vice-presidents 
of  the  League. 

He  had  indeed  resigned  after  he  became  President,  but  had 
written  that  his  "interest  in  and  sympathy  with  the  work  of 
the  Civil  Service  Reform  League  had  not  been  and  could 
not  be  abated."  About  the  time  of  his  inauguration  there 
was  the  usual  scramble  for  office  such  as  follows  the  accession 
of  a  President  belonging  to  another  party  and  some  of  the 
incidents  attending  this  scramble  were  peculiarly  amusing. 
One  of  our  Indiana  Congressmen  prepared  a  list  of  presidential 
post  offices  in  his  district,  giving  the  names  of  the  occupants 
and  the  salary  of  each.  At  the  left  of  the  sheet  a  large  marginal 
space  was  reserved  in  which  to  write  the  names  of  appHcants. 
The  first  of  these  were  written  in  his  customary  well  rounded 
hand,  but  as  the  swarm  grew  he  reduced  the  size  of  his  hand- 
writing to  conserve  space.    But  it  was  of  no  use.    The  man 

226 


LAIVS  ELIMINATING  THE  MERIT  SYSTEM  227 

who  wrote  the  Lord's  Prayer  on  a  piece  of  paper  no  larger  than 
his  thumbnail  might  be  able  to  get  it  all  in,  but  however  fine 
his  chirography,  the  Congressman  could  not  crowd  in  the 
names  of  all  those  who  wanted  these  places. 

Another  Indiana  member  received  the  following  note  from 
a  modest  constituent : 

Kind  Sir  &  Friend:  At  last  the  Democratic  party  is  in  sight  of  the  clover 
patch.  It  has  been  a  long,  dreary  experience  waiting  on  the  outside,  so  let 
us  not  hesitate  to  enter  and  take  possession  of  the  promised  land.  I  would 
be  glad  if  you  would  sound  Governor  Wilson  and  see  if  you  can  get  a  place 
for  me  that  pays  well:  I  wish  you  would  strike  for  something  high  up  on 
the  list  and  then  if  you  have  to  drop,  all  right. 

I  would  suggest  trying  for  a  Cabinet  place  first.  If  the  Governor  won't 
come  across  with  that  appointment  touch  him  a  little  more  lightly,  say 
for  a  job  like  commissioner  of  internal  revenue,  commissioner  of  pensions, 
or  something  like  that.  If  you  can't  do  any  better  for  me  I  would  be 
willing  to  take  a  job  as  post  office  inspector  though,  of  course,  it  would  not 
be  wise  to  let  that  be  known  in  advance.     Do  the  best  you  can  for  me. 

Another  wrote: 

I  have  thought  over  the  matter  at  some  length  and  would  not  mind 
being  appointed  to  some  nice  ambassadorship  in  a  nearby  country. 
Kindly  notify  me  if  it  is  all  right. 

President  Wilson  appeared  to  start  well  in  resisting  solici- 
tations. On  March  5,  19 13,  the  day  after  his  inauguration,  he 
issued  a  statement  that  he  deemed  it  his  duty  to  decline  to  see 
applicants  for  office  in  person  except  when  he  himself  invited 
the  interview  and  that  he  would  deal  with  applicants  through 
the  heads  of  the  several  departments.  But  this  announcement 
merely  changed  the  point  of  pressure.  The  members  of  his 
Cabinet  were  swamped  with  import tmities.  Senator  Tillman 
found  in  the  Department  of  State  "swarms  of  hewers  of  wood 
and  drawers  of  water.  The  wild  asses  of  the  desert  were 
athirst  and  hungry.     They  had  broken  into  the  green  com. " 

LAWS  ELIMINATING  THE  MERIT  SYSTEM 

The  first  important  inroads  into  the  competitive  system 
were  made  by  Congress  but  they  all  met  the  approval  of  the 
Executive.    The  Democratic  national  platform  of  1912  de- 


228  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

clared:  "The  law  pertaining  to  the  civil  service  should  be 
honestly  and  rigidly  enforced  to  the  end  that  merit  and 
ability  should  be  the  standard  of  appointment  and  promotion 
rather  than  service  to  a  political  party. "  And  the  resolutions 
at  their  conclusion  stated,  "Our  pledges  are  made  to  be  kept 
when  in  office  as  well  as  relied  upon  during  the  campaign." 

Mr.  Wilson  was  supported  by  a  large  Democratic  majority 
in  both  houses  of  Congress.  Any  attack  by  Congress  upon  the 
law  was  surely  a  violation  of  the  promise  and  it  was  well  known 
that  the  act  and  rules  applied  not  only  to  existing  positions 
but  also  to  places  created  by  future  legislation. 

Yet  as  soon  as  the  Democratic  majority  in  Congress  began 
to  enact  important  laws  it  also  began  to  chop  off  piecemeal  the 
application  of  the  civil  service  law  both  to  the  places  which 
were  created  by  new  legislation  and  also  to  places  which  al- 
ready existed. 

A  large  number  of  employees  were  provided  to  administer 
the  income  tax  and  Congress  made  all  the  positions  in  the  field 
force  of  this  service  the  subjects  of  political  plunder  by  taking 
them  out  of  the  operation  of  the  civil  service  law  for  two 
years'  and  providing  for  appointments  under  regulations  to 
be  made  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

The  President  signed  the  bill  in  this  form.  He  would  have 
had  the  power  even  under  this  law  to  direct  the  Secretary  to 
provide  competitive  tests  but  he  did  not  do  so.  The  Demo- 
cratic majority  next  fastened  a  rider  on  the  Urgent  Deficiency 
Bill  removing  from  the  operation  of  the  law  deputy  revenue 
collectors  and  deputy  marshals,  positions  which  had  long  been 
in  the  classified  service. 

Then  the  employees  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Board  created 
by  the  new  currency  act  were  excluded  from  the  classified  ser- 
vice. Vice-President  Marshall  gave  the  casting  vote  in  the 
Senate  in  favor  of  this  exclusion. 

Next,  fourteen  important  positions  of  commercial  attaches 
credited  to  American  ministers  abroad,  positions  which  ought 

^  After  the  places  had  been  filled  by  partisan  appointments  these  appoint- 
ments at  the  end  of  the  two  years  were  to  be  given  greater  permanency  by 
then  including  them  in  the  classified  service. 


SPOILS  IN  SANTO  DOMINGO  229 

to  be  non-political,  were  removed  from  the  merit  system  to  be 
made  the  spoils  of  party  and  changed  with  each  change  of 
administration. 

By  the  Trade  Commission  Bill  all  the  attorneys,  special 
experts,  and  examiners  of  that  body  were  excluded  from  the 
classified  service. 

When  the  Agricultural  Credits  Bill  was  enacted  the  em- 
ployees were  also  to  be  appointed  without  reference  to  the  civil 
service  law.     The  President  approved  all  these  measures. 

SPOILS  IN  SANTO  DOMINGO 

In  addition  to  this  record  of  promise-breaking  the  confiden- 
tial instructions  of  Mr.  Bryan,  Secretary  of  State,  were  most 
illimiinating.  On  the  2d  of  September,  1914,  he  sent  to  Walter 
W.  Vick,  then  Receiver  General  of  Customs  at  Santo  Domingb, 
a  letter  which  attracted  much  attention.  Places  in  the  govern- 
ment service  were  still  a  little  scanty  at  home.  Pickings  for 
the  faithful  must  be  found  elsewhere,  and  in  what  better  place 
than  in  Santo  Domingo  where  nobody  was  watching  and  where 
"our  beloved  and  oppressed  brethren"  of  the  Dominican 
Republic  might  be  made  to  pay  the  piper.  The  letter  con- 
tained the  following : 

Now  that  you  have  arrived  and  acquainted  yourself  with  the  situation, 
can  you  let  me  know  what  positions  you  have  at  your  disposal  with  which 
to  reward  deserving  Democrats.  Whenever  you  desire  a  suggestion  from 
me  in  regard  to  a  man  for  any  place  down  there,  call  on  me.  You  have  had 
enough  experience  in  politics  to  know  how  valuable  workers  are  when  the 
campaign  is  on,  and  how  difficult  it  is  to  find  suitable  rewards  for  the 
deserving.  I  do  not  know  to  what  extent  a  knowledge  of  the  Spanish 
language  is  necessary  for  employees*  Let  me  know  what  is  requisite, 
together  with  the  salary  and  when  appointments  are  likely  to  be  made. 
Sullivan  will  be  down  before  long  and  you  and  he  together  ought  to  be  able 
to  bring  about  such  reforms  as  may  be  necessary  there.  You  will  find 
Sullivan  a  strong,  courageous,  reliable  fellow.  The  more  I  have  seen  of 
him,  the  better  satisfied  I  am  that  he  will  fit  into  the  place  there  and  do 
what  is  necessary  to  be  done. 

Very  truly, 
W.J.  Bryan. 

And  accordingly  the  "strong,  courageous,  reliable"  Sullivan 


230  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

proceeded  to  "reform"  things  by  transferring  the  public  funds 
to  a  precious  group  of  patriots  in  control  of  the  "Banco 
Nacional, "  an  institution  described  by  one  of  the  witnesses  as 
"a  joke,"  and  from  which  these  funds  afterwards  had  to  be 
withdrawn  and  restored  to  the  original  depository.  A  newly 
created  office  at  "$8ooo  a  year  and  expenses"  was  given  to  a 
man  without  experience  and  other  illustrations  were  shown  of 
Mr.  Bryan's  altruistic  principles  towards  Santo  Domingo. 
As  the  result  of  an  investigation  Sullivan  afterwards  had  to 
resign  and  his  predecessor  was  reappointed. 

It  was  quite  natural  in  view  of  the  disposition  of  Mr.  Bryan 
as  shown  by  the  foregoing  correspondence  that  the  most 
flagrant  disregard  of  the  merit  principle  should  be  found  in 
the  Department  of  State  and  this  was  shown  in  the  appoint- 
ments made  to  our  foreign  embassies. 

EMBASSIES  TO  CAMPAIGN  CONTRIBUTORS 

There  is  no  higher  office  at  the  disposal  of  the  government 
outside  the  Cabinet  itself  than  the  position  of  ambassador  at 
the  court  of  a  foreign  power.  The  ambassador  is  the  immedi- 
ate personal  representative  of  the  President  charged  with  the 
duty  of  maintaining  before  the  other  powers  of  the  world  the 
interests  and  the  dignity  of  the  nation. 

When  Mr.  Wilson  became  President  William  Rockhill  was 
minister  to  Turkey.  He  had  been  in  the  diplomatic  service 
for  nineteen  years,  first  in  the  Department  of  State,  then  as 
minister  and  consul-general  to  Greece,  Roumania,  and  Servia, 
then  director  of  the  International  Bureau  of  American  Repub- 
lics, then  commissioner  in  connection  with  the  Boxer  insur- 
rection, then  minister  to  China  in  1905,  ambassador  to  Russia 
in  1909  and  to  Constantinople  in  191 1.  There  was  no  more 
skillful  diplomat  in  America.  He  had  the  widest  knowledge  of 
international  law,  was  proficient  in  many  foreign  languages, 
including  even  Chinese,  and  was  admirably  equipped  for  any 
place  in  our  foreign  service.  But  he  was  displaced  to  make 
room  for  a  man  absolutely  inexperienced  in  diplomatic  or  inter- 
national affairs,  Mr.  Henry  Morgenthau,  a  New  York  lawyer 


EMBASSIES  TO  CAMPAIGN  CONTRIBUTORS   231 

and  financier.  What  was  the  reason  of  the  appointment  of 
this  untried  man  who  had  never  been  distinguished  either  in 
politics,  letters,  or  diplomacy? 

He  had  been  the  chairman  of  the  Democratic  Finance  Com- 
mittee in  the  campaign  of  191 2  charged  with  the  adminis- 
tration and  largely  with  the  collection  of  the  fund  raised  for 
the  election  of  Mr.  Wilson.  He  was  also  one  of  the  largest 
contributors.  According  to  the  report  furnished  by  the 
Democratic  National  Committee,  as  published  in  the  Con- 
gressional Record  of  August  10,  19 16  (see  page  14,394),  he 
contributed  to  the  McCoombs  pre-nomination  fund  to  secure 
the  nomination  of  Mr.  Wilson  the  simi  of  $20,000  and  then  to 
the  general  fund  for  Mr.  Wilson's  election  the  further  sum 
of  $10,000,  or  $30,000  in  all. 

As  soon  as  the  new  President  was  warm  in  his  place  and  Mr. 
Bryan  had  become  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Morgenthau's 
application  for  his  reward  was  made  and  on  the  4th  of  Septem- 
ber, 1 91 3,  he  was  made  ambassador  to  Turkey. 

The  embassy  to  Vienna  was  bestowed  upon  another  exten- 
sive contributor,  Mr.  Fred.  C.  Penfield,  who  had  given,  accord- 
ing to  the  same  authority,  to  the  McCoombs  pre-nomination 
fund  $12,000,  and  to  the  fund  for  Mr.  Wilson's  election  $10,000, 
being  $22,000  in  all.  Mr.  Penfield  however  had  had  some 
previous  experience  in  our  foreign  service  having  been  vice- 
consul-general  at  London  and  constd  in  Egypt  some  twenty 
years  before. 

The  embassy  to  Germany  was  bestowed  upon  James  W. 
Gerard,  who  had  contributed  according  to  the  same  authority 
$13,500  to  the  Democratic  campaign  fund.  Mr.  Gerard,  like 
Mr.  Morgenthau,  had  been  absolutely  without  diplomatic 
experience.  He  was  chairman  of  the  Democratic  campaign 
committee  of  New  York  Coimty  for  four  years  and  Associate 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  that  State  from  1908  to  191 1. 
Not  a  single  element  of  diplomatic  qualifications  had  been 
shown  in  his  career. 

Another  man  contributed  $5000  and  was  made  minister  to 
Uruguay. 

Thus  the  baleful  precedents  set  by  President  Harrison  in  the 


232  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

case  of  Mr.  Wanamaker  and  by  President  Cleveland  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  Van  Alen  were  now  followed  in  greater  ntimber 
under  President  Wilson.  How  much  of  the  responsibility  was 
personal  to  the  President  and  how  much  to  a  Secretary  of 
State  who  was  anxious  to  reward  "deserving  Democrats" 
it  is  not  easy  to  say. 

Out  of  eleven  ambassadors  eight  were  replaced  and  among 
thirty-five  ministers  there  were  twenty-two  changes  in  less 
than  eight  months  with  the  result  that  other  men  of  long 
experience  were  supplanted  by  those  who  were  wholly  im- 
trained.  It  is  fair  to  say  that  some  of  the  new  appointments 
were  made  because  those  in  the  service  voluntarily  resigned. 

It  should  also  be  acknowledged  that  the  Wilson  adminis- 
tration did  far  better  in  the  lower  diplomatic  service  and  in  the 
consular  service  than  with  the  ambassadors  and  ministers. 
The  executive  orders  promulgated  by  Presidents  Roosevelt 
and  Taft  requiring  pass  examinations  for  subordinate  posi- 
tions were  observed  in  all  but  five  cases,  and  in  four  of  these, 
persons  of  experience  were  appointed. 

In  respect  of  the  consular  service  the  President  in  general 
withstood  the  attacks  of  the  place  htmters  and  in  191 5  a  bill 
was  passed  known  as  the  Stone-Flood  Bill  which  provided 
for  the  grading  of  diplomatic  secretaries  and  consular  offices 
and  the  assignment  of  the  members  of  the  service  to  these 
grades,  the  President  being  authorized  to  transfer  employees 
from  one  grade  to  another.  This  embodied  in  legislation  the 
methods  introduced  by  the  executive  orders  of  Presidents 
Roosevelt  and  Taft. 

CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSION  REORGANIZED 

In  regard  to  the  vital  matter  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission 
Mr.  Wilson  disappointed  expectations.  General  John  C. 
Black  and  William  S.  Washburn  resigned,  and  the  President 
appointed  in  place  of  General  Black,  Charles  M.  Gallaway,  a 
newspaper  man  of  South  Carolina,  former  secretary  to  Senator 
Smith  of  that  State  and  clerk  of  the  Commission  on  Immi- 
gration in  the  Senate.     In  place  of  Mr.  Washburn,  Herman  W. 


FOURTH-CLASS  POST  OFFICES  233 

Craven,  of  Seattle,  Washington,  was  appointed.     Neither  of 
the  new  commissioners  were  experienced  in  civil  service  matters. 

FOURTH-CLASS  POST  OFFICES 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  before  he  left 
the  Presidency  classified  the  f otirth-class  post  offices  lying  east 
of  the  Mississippi  and  north  of  the  Ohio  and  Potomac,  about 
15,000  places  in  all,  and  President  Taft  on  October  15,  191 2, 
just  before  the  presidential  election,  classified  the  remaining 
post  offices,  about  36,000  in  nttmber. 

When  these  places  were  classified  those  who  held  the  posi- 
tions at  the  time  were  "covered "  into  the  service.  Naturally 
the  Democrats  when  they  came  into  power  resented  the  fact 
that  so  large  a  number  of  postmasters  who  had  entered  with- 
out examination  were  now  in  the  competitive  class.  Fourth- 
class  postmasters  are  very  useful  to  Congressmen  in  their 
political  campaigns  and  the  problem  apparently  arose  how 
best  to  get  the  places  that  were  wanted  and  still  leave  the 
classification  intact.  The  method  adopted  was  this.  Presi- 
dent Wilson  on  May  7,  191 3,  promulgated  an  order  that  no 
fourth-class  postmaster  should  be  given  a  competitive  status 
unless  he  had  been  appointed  as  the  result  of  an  open  competi- 
tive examination.  From  the  eligible  lists  appointments  were 
to  be  made  from  among  the  three  highest,  the  former  appoint- 
ees taking  their  chances  with  other  competitors.  Since  there 
was  an  average  of  less  than  three  applicants  for  these  small 
places  the  choice  among  them  would  give  all  the  latitude 
necessary  for  political  appointments. 

The  League  doubted  the  practicability  of  the  competitive 
examination  ordered  by  President  Wilson.  The  plan  would  be 
costly  and  laborious,  involving  examinations  for  many  thou- 
sands of  offices,  but  if  fairly  executed,  it  would  improve  adminis- 
tration. Here  was  exactly  the  crux  of  the  matter.  Would 
the  plan  be  fairly  executed? 

The  examinations  were  held  throughout  the  country  at  an 
expense  of  not  far  from  $100,000  and  took  nearly  two  years 
for  their  completion.  When  the  eligible  lists  were  made  up 
what  was  done  with  them?    The  Postmaster- General  in  a 


234  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

public  statement,  issued  November  17,  19 13,  declared  that 
it  was  ^^  his  practice  to  ask  the  member  of  Congress  in  whose 
district  the  vacancy  exists  to  advise  him  relative  to  the  character 
and  fitness  of  the  three  eligihlesy 

But  Section  10  of  the  civil  service  law  had  provided  that  no 
recommendation  by  any  Senator  or  Representative  except  as 
to  character  or  residence  of  the  applicant  should  be  received  or 
considered.  This  section  was  inserted  to  put  an  end  to  the 
control  of  appointments  by  Congressmen,  since  their  recom- 
mendations were  bound  to  be  largely  political  and  were  the 
source  of  most  of  the  evils  of  the  whole  spoils  system. 

The  League,  on  January  8th,  wrote  to  the  Postmaster- 
General  reminding  him  that  his  public  statement  violated 
Section  10.  He  answered  that  he  believed  it  did  not  do  this 
and  that  he  was  justified  in  securing  information  from  Con- 
gressmen ''not  in  their  capacity  as  members  of  a  political 
party  but  as  representatives  of  their  districts  and  of  the 
postal  communities  interested  in  the  service. " 

Of  this,  President  Dana  of  the  League  aptly  remarked  that 
tmder  such  a  construction  a  judge  prohibited  from  sitting  in  a 
case  in  which  he  had  an  interest  might  ignore  the  law  and 
say  he  was  not  to  sit  as  a  party  interested  but  as  an  impartial 
judge.  The  League  asked  to  have  the  legality  of  this  position 
submitted  to  the  Attorney-General,  but  its  request  was  not 
granted.  It  then  asked  the  Civil  Service  Commission  for 
leave  to  inspect  the  eligible  lists  to  see  how  far  the  appoint- 
ments had  been  made  from  those  who  stood  highest,  but  the 
Commission  refused  to  allow  such  inspection. 

We  were  not  at  all  convinced  by  the  edifying  declarations 
of  the  Postmaster-General  that  it  was  his  purpose  that  the 
positions  be  filled  "in  accordance  with  both  the  letter  and  the 
spirit  of  the  law  "  which  at  that  moment  he  was  violating.  It 
was  quite  vain  to  say  that  "such  recommendation  must  be 
based  solely  upon  merit  and  fitness  and  without  reference  to 
political  affiliations"  and  that  letters  based  on  political  con- 
siderations would  be  returned.^    Equally  unconvincing  were 

^  Indeed  he  afterwards  stated  that  he  was  not  asking  "  recommendations  " 
at  all  but  merely  "information. " 


FOURTH-CLASS  POST  OFFICES  235 

his  directions  to  the  First  Assistant  Postmaster-General  that 
he  desired  the  person  with  the  highest  rating  to  be  chosen 
unless  good  reasons  were  submitted  showing  this  would  "not 
be  to  the  best  interests  of  the  service. "  It  would  be  a  barren 
intelligence  which  could  not  furnish  an  appropriate  and  plausi- 
ble reason  when  desired.  A  better  way  to  ascertain  whether 
the  appointments  were  really  non-political  would  be  to  find 
out  in  what  per  cent  of  these  cases  the  highest  man  was  actu- 
ally chosen  or  the  incumbent  retained.  On  this  point,  Mr. 
Burleson  afterwards  made  a  statement  in  a  speech  to  the 
League,  December  5,  1916,  at  New  Haven,  which  on  its  face 
was  particularly  strong.  He  declared  that  66  per  cent  of  the 
incumbents  had  been  retained  and  classified,  that  30  per  cent  of 
the  places  had  been  filled  by  other  men  whose  names  stood 
highest,  that  in  less  than  3  per  cent  of  the  cases  the  incum- 
bent had  been  succeeded  by  the  second  eligible  and  in  less 
than  I  per  cent  by  the  third  eligible.  He  further  added  that 
of  the  whole  number  of  appointments  made,  89^^  per  cent 
were  from  the  eligibles  who  stood  highest.  But  when  Mr. 
Burleson's  figures  were  analyzed  in  comparison  with  those  in 
the  report  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  of  November  15, 
1 9 16,  the  results  showed  something  quite  different.  He  had 
only  appointed  29  per  cent  of  the  incumbents  in  cases  where 
he  had  any  choice  at  all.  This  was  considerably  less  than  one 
third  instead  of  two  thirds.^ 

But  perhaps  they  may  have  been  an  undesirable  lot.  A 
better  test  will  be,  did  Mr.  Burleson  really  choose  the  highest 

^  The  Commission  reported  (pp.  xviii.,  xxvi.)  that  the  numbfer  of  cer- 
tificates upon  which  the  incumbents'  names  appeared  was  7845  but  that 
in  4Q4T  of  these,  the  incumbent  was  the  only  eligible.  The  Postmaster- 
General  could  Ho  nothing  but  appoint  him.  It  was  only  in  the  remaining 
2898  cases  therefore  that  there  was  any  choice. 

Now  the  entire  number  of  incumbents  appointed  by  the  Postmaster- 
General  on  these  certificates  was  5565  and  the  entire  number  appointed 
where  the  incumbent  was  the  only  eligible  was  4717;  therefore  the  number 
of  incumbents  appointed  where  incumbents  were  not  the  only  eligibles  must 
have  been  848.  In  other  words  the  Postmaster- General  in  those  cases 
where  he  had  any  choice  at  all  appointed  848  incumbents  or  29  per  cent  of 
2898. 


236  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

eligibles?  Was  his  claim  that  he  selected  89  per  cent  of  these 
correct?  Here  too  the  figures  in  the  report  of  the  Commis- 
sion are  illtiminating  and  they  showed  that  only  57  per  cent 
of  the  highest  candidates  were  appointed  in  cases  where  there 
was  any  choice  at  all.' 

In  1906,  during  President  Roosevelt's  administration,  the 
appointing  officers  in  nearly  90  per  cent  of  the  cases  followed 
the  order  of  the  register  in  making  appointments.  (See  p.  i, 
23d  Report  C.  S.  Commission.)  Now  Mr.  Burleson  followed 
this  order  in  less  than  57  per  cent  and  there  is  the  strongest 
reason  for  thinking  that  a  good  part  of  this  difference  (over  33 
per  cent)  was  political  plunder.* 

This  political  manipulation  was  particularly  bad  in  Indiana. 
Congressmen  might  be  told  that  nothing  but  merit  and  fitness 
should  be  considered  yet  they  still  made  partisan  selections. 
Chester  C.  Hicks,  a  Republican  whose  standing  was  the 
highest  of  any  candidate  in  his  district,  was  passed  over  and 
Mort  Ellis,  a  Democrat,  was  recommended  by  Congressman 
Moss  and  received  the  appointment.  Hicks  wrote  to  the 
Congressman  asking  why  and  Mr.  Moss  replied,  April  7,  1914: 

*  In  7441  cases  only  one  eligible  was  secured  from  each  examination.  (See 
23dReportC.  S.  Commission  p.  xxv.)  In2856  cases  appointments  were  made 
from  lists  of  two  eligibles.  In  1795  of  these  cases  (62.8  per  cent)  t)ie  first  eli- 
gible was  appointed.  In  3038  there  were  three  eligibles  (p.  xxvi) .  In  156 1  of 
these  (51.4  per  cent)  the  highest  was  selected.  Thus  it  appears  that  out 
of  5894  cases  in  which  the  Postmaster-General  had  any  choice  at  all  he 
selected  the  highest  man  in  3357  cases  or  less  than  57  per  cent. 

"  Of  course  there  were  exceptional  cases  where  the  highest  man  was 
properly  passed  over,  perhaps  because  of  the  location  of  the  office  or  possi- 
bly he  might  be  holding  some  position  which  would  render  him  ineligible, 
and  occasionally  there  were  other  reasons.  The  secretary  of  the  League 
made  an  investigation  early  in  19 17  (the  Postmaster-General  having 
allowed  him  access  to  the  records  of  the  department)  in  the  States  of 
Massachusetts,  Georgia,  Texas,  and  Oregon,  and  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  in  most  of  these  cases  the  selection  of  the  lower  man  was  justified  by 
records  or  papers  on  file  with  the  Department  and  that  while  political 
influence  may  have  crept  in  in  some  cases  the  record  was  on  the  whole  to 
the  credit  of  the  Postmaster-General.  But  in  the  particular  States  which 
happened  to  be  selected  the  highest  man  was  passed  over  in  less  than 
34  per  cent  of  the  cases  while  in  the  average  throughout  the  country  he  was 
passed  over  in  more  than  43  per  cent  of  the  cases;  so  that  these  States 


FOURTH-CLASS  POST  OFFICES  237 

"I  have  followed  the  invariable  custom  under  all  adminis- 
trations in  nominating  members  of  my  own  party  to  fill  vacan- 
cies. I  cannot  act  otherwise  unless  the  department  prefers  to 
take  the  candidate  with  the  highest  grade. " 

Senator  Hoke  Smith  of  Georgia  wrote  to  a  candidate  for 
appointment,  "I  have  always  felt  that  this  being  a  Democratic 
administration,  appointees  should  be  Democratic.  What  I 
wish  to  know  from  you  candidly  is  how  you  have  voted  in 
national  politics. " 

These  are  but  illustrations.  In  the  opinion  of  the  President 
himself  the  bulk  of  the  postmasters  of  every  class,  after  three 
years  of  his  administration,  had  become  Democratic,  for  at  the 
national  convention  of  these  officials  held  in  Washington  in 
the  stimmer  of  19 16,  he  said  that  he  was  at  liberty  to  talk 
frankly  and  freely  as  his  auditors  were  "  virtually  all  Demo- 
crats." This  could  hardly  be  so  unless  the  postmasterships 
had  virtually  become  the  subjects  of  Democratic  patronage. 

But  whether  the  number  of  political  appointments  of  fourth- 
class  postmasters  was  large  or  small  it  is  plain  that  they  were 
brought  about  by  the  Postmaster-General's  clear  violation  of 
the  law.  ^ 

were  not  fairly  typical,  the  competitive  principle  being  better  observed 
there  than  in  most  other  places. 

Moreover  the  grounds  for  appointment  shown  by  the  "records  and 
papers  on  file"  might  not  in  all  cases  have  been  the  real  ones.  Congress- 
men who  "recommend"  will  not  often  declare  openly  a  political  motive 
when  they  are  told  by  the  Department  that  if  they  do  so  their  communi- 
cations will  be  returned  unconsidered. 

Much  additional  light  could  be  thrown  upon  the  question  if  it  were 
ascertained  in  how  many  cases  Republicans  had  been  superseded  by  Demo- 
crats and  vice  versa.  The  worst  instances  of  political  manipulation  (as 
stated  by  Mr.Gillette  in  his  speech  in  Congress  on  August  i8, 19 16)  (Record, 
p.  14,550)  were  in  the  middle  West  and  no  State  was  chosen  from  that 
section  when  the  secretary  of  the  League  made  his  examination. 

^  The  officers  of  the  League  in  the  autumn  of  19 14  had  a  conference  with 
President  Wilson  who  expressed  some  surprise  that  the  Postmaster-General 
had  issued  a  circular  stating  that  the  recommendations  of  Congressmen 
would  be  sought.  He  thought  that  Mr.  Burleson  was  observing  the  merit 
principle  and  that  the  outcome  would  be  satisfactory  to  the  League.  Yet 
no  change  occurred.  The  recommendations  continued  to  be  sought. 
Meanwhile,  Mr.  Mcllhenny,  President  of  the  Commission,  made  the  extra- 


238  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

RURAL  FREE  DELIVERY  CARRIERS 

Many  places  in  the  important  rural  free  delivery  service,  a 
service  employing  over  forty-three  thousand  carriers,  were  also 
turned  over  to  congressional  patronage  in  the  following  manner. 
A  joint  resolution  of  Congress  extending  the  appropriation  for 
the  postal  service  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1916,  contained 
this  proviso: 

That  in  the  discretion  of  the  Postmaster-General  the  pay  of  rural  carriers 
who  furnish  and  maintain  their  own  motor  vehicles  and  whose  service 
routes  are  not  less  than  fifty  miles  in  length,  may  be  fixed  at  not  exceeding 
$1800  per  annum. 

Nothing  in  this  resolution  contemplated  the  creation  of  any 
new  service.  These  carriers  had  a  peculiarly  strong  claim  to 
retention  because  they  had  purchased  their  horses  and  vehicles 
at  their  own  expense  and  great  ntmibers  had  secured  admission 
by  competitive  methods.  But  the  Postmaster-General,  seizing 
this  joint  resolution  as  a  ground  for  abolishing  great  numbers 
of  rural  routes  and  for  creating  a  so-called  new  branch,  "Motor 
Rural  Carriers,"  proceeded  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of  many 
hundreds  of  positions,  turning  out  all  the  incumbents,  no 
matter  how  well  they  had  performed  their  duties,  and  appoint- 
ing new  men  by  means  of  a  so-called  new  examination  by  the 
Civil  Service  Commission,  the  eligible  lists  from  this  new 
examination  being  turned  over  to  Congressmen  for  recommen- 
dations in  the  same  manner  as  had  been  done  in  the  case  of 
fourth-class  postmasters. 

The  Postmaster-General  had  the  right  to  promote  the  men 
already  in  the  service  or  add  to  their  compensation.  This  he 
did  not  do  but  in  order  to  make  the  political  changes  he  de- 
sired he  had  a  new  examination.  For  this  purpose  it  was 
necessary  to  secure  the  cooperation  of  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission, and  it  seems  remarkable  that  the  Commission  should 
have  acquiesced  without  a  protest. 

If  an  examination  were  to  be  held  and  all  the  difference 

ordinary  statement  that  the  Postmaster-General  was  entirely  within  the 
law  in  seeking  these  recommendations!  (Minutes  of  League's  Council 
meeting  of  October  9,  1914.) 


FOURTH-CLASS  POST  OFFICES  239 

between  these  motor  carriers  and  other  rural  carriers  was  that 
they  were  to  drive  an  automobile  instead  of  a  horse,  the  new 
examinations  ought  to  have  some  reference  to  this  new  duty. 
But,  on  the  contrary,  the  examinations  were  precisely  the  same 
as  those  for  ordinary  rural  free  delivery  carriers.  There  were 
no  competitive  tests  of  any  kind  as  to  nmning  a  machine.^ 
The  examination  was  in  spelling,  arithmetic,  letter- writing, 
penmanship,  copying,  and  reading  addresses.  The  men  already 
in  the  service  had  passed  that  sort  of  an  examination  in  the 
past  and  had  been  working  six,  eight,  twelve  years  in  that 
particular  line  of  duty  except  that  they  had  used  a  horse  in- 
stead of  a  machine.  How  could  another  examination  on  the 
same  subjects  secure  better  men  to  operate  an  automobile? 
Is  it  not  clear  that  the  real  object  was  merely  to  get  the  old 
men  out  and  put  new  men  in? 

And  this  becomes  all  the  clearer  from  another  fact : 
The  Commission  determined  that  applicants  who  had  served 
in  the  position  of  regular  rural  carrier  should  be  given  addi- 
tional credit  in  the  examination.  ^ 

How  fair!  But  how  much  should  it  count?  The  Commis- 
sion announced,  "There  will  be  added  to  the  general  average 
attained  in  the  examination,  a  credit  of  one  half  of  one  per  cent, 
for  each  year's  experience  not  exceeding  a  total  of  six  years  of 
such  experience,  or  a  maximum  of  three  per  cent. ".'  Frankly  it 
would  have  been  more  decent  to  have  allowed  nothing.  For 
according  to  the  rules  of  rating  announced  by  the  Commission, 
a  single  omitted  punctuation  or  a  fraction  correct  but  not 
reduced  to  the  lowest  terms  will  deduct  from  one  to  two  per 
cent  of  the  whole  while  a  year's  experience  in  faithful  work 
counts  for  one  half  of  one  per  cent  only.     Thus  it  would  require 

'  No  questions  were  asked  in  regard  to  it  except  that  in  the  preliminary 
and  declaration  sheet  (not  the  examination  paper)  the  applicant  had  to  give 
a  statement  of  the  experience  he  had  in  the  operation  of  motor  vehicles. 
But  no  weight  whatever  was  given  in  the  rating  to  the  answer  to  this 
question.  The  man  who  furnished  the  best  machine  and  was  most  com- 
petent to  run  it  had  no  advantage  over  the  man  who  furnished  the  poorest 
and  who  was  least  competent. 

"Cong.  Record,  Dec.  14,  1915.  Letter  of  Fourth  Assistant  Postmaster- 
General. 


240  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

from  two  to  four  years*  experience  to  make  up  for  that  omitted 
punctuation  and  no  amount  of  past  faithful  experience  could 
atone  for  two  or  three  such  mistakes ! 

But  comment  cannot  add  to  the  irony  of  this  method  of 
covering  up  the  process  by  which  a  great  branch  of  the  classi- 
fied service  was  again  consigned  to  patronage  and  spoils. 
After  the  examinations  were  held  and  the  new  eligible  lists 
made  up  they  were  turned  over  to  Democratic  Congressmen, 
who  appointed  the  politicians  most  serviceable  to  them  in 
their  campaigns.' 

Such  is  the  history  of  the  political  manipulation  of  the  rural 
free  delivery  service.  It  was  far  worse  than  if  these  places 
had  been  withdrawn  from  classification  and  had  been  openly 

^  To  illustrate,  let  me  take  the  case  of  my  own  city  of  Richmond  and  of 
Wayne  County,  Indiana,  in  which  it  is  situated.  There  were  eight  rural 
routes  starting  from  this  city  and  there  were  nine  others  in  the  county. 
In  November,  191 5,  I  learned  that  all  these  seventeen  routes  were  to  be 
abolished,  the  carriers  dismissed,  and  new  motor  routes  were  to  be  estab- 
lished in  their  places. 

The  postmaster  at  Richmond,  Charles  B.  Beck,  a  Democrat,  appointed 
on  the  recommendation  of  Finly  P.  Gray,  the  Representative  from  the 
district,  showed  me  letters  from  the  Department  instructing  him  to  dis- 
continue the  rural  route  service  from  Richmond,  giving  the  names  of 
the  eight  carriers  who  were  to  be  discharged  and  ordering  the  establish- 
ment of  four  new  routes  to  be  served  by  motor  vehicles.  The  majority  of 
the  men  dismissed  had  been  carriers  for  over  five  years  and  they  had 
secured  admission  by  competitive  examination.  New  examinations  had 
been  held  for  the  position  of  motor  carrier  and  Mr.  Beck  informed  me 
that  the  eligible  lists  had  been  sent  to  Congressman  Gray  for  recommenda- 
tions and  that  Mr.  Gray  had  brought  these  lists  and  consulted  with  him  as 
to  the  appointments.  I  learned  afterwards  that  Mr.  Beck  had  said  to  one 
of  the  old  carriers,  "Democrats  ought  to  be  in  these  places,  and  I  will  do 
what  I  can  to  get  them  there."  All  the  new  men  appointed  were  Demo- 
crats. On  December  30,  191 5,  I  inquired  of  Congressman  Gray  why  he 
had  asked  for  these  lists.  He  answered  that  he  had  not  asked  for  them 
at  ally  but  they  had  been  sent  by  the  Commission  at  the  request  of  the 
Department.  I  at  once  wrote  to  the  Commission  and  inquired  what  were 
the  facts.  The  Commission  in  answer  enclosed  a  copy  of  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Gray  asking  for  the  Wajme  County  list  of  eligibles  "without  delay, "  also  a 
telegram  of  November  ist,  "Send  immediately  eligible  list  rural  auto 
carriers,  Wayne  County,  Indiana,"  and  the  list  was  accordingly  sent. 

In  my  conversation  with  Mr.  Gray  I  reminded  him  that  these  places 


FOURTH-CLASS  POST  OFFICES  241 

thrown  back  into  the  spoils  system.  This  would  have  been 
discreditable  but  it  would  have  been  candid  and  we  could  tell 
by  comparison  which  worked  best,  patronage  or  competition, 
but  under  Mr.  Burleson's  illegal  manipulation  of  the  lists  the 
evil  of  the  spoils  system  was  attributed  to  the  competitive 
system  itself  and  the  reform  was  discredited.  To  make  com- 
petitive examinations  the  very  means  of  discrediting  the  com- 
petitive system  was  injurious  to  the  last  degree. 

I  communicated  the  foregoing  facts  to  the  President  in  a 
letter  dated  January  12,  191 6,  and  on  the  17th  of  that  month 
I  received  an  answer  over  his  personal  signature  that  this  letter 
would  have  his  attention.  But  if  any  action  was  taken  by  the 
Chief  Executive  to  stay  this  prostitution  of  the  service  I  never 
heard  of  it. 

were  in  the  classified  service  and  that  under  the  law  he  had  no  right  to 
make  any  recommendations  nor  take  any  part  in  these  appointments  except 
to  furnish  information  in  respect  to  the  residence  or  character  of  the  ap- 
plicants. He  told  me  he  had  found  that  the  characters  of  every  one  of  the 
applicants  were  good.  If  that  were  so,  his  participation  in  these  appoint- 
ments ought  to  have  ended.  He  added,  however,  that  he  had  selected  the 
men  who  came  from  the  place  where  the  route  started  since  he  assumed 
that  people  wanted  a  carrier  from  their  own  town.  But  he  did  not  follow 
this  rule.  He  recommended  Poland  of  Centerville  as  carrier  on  a  route 
starting  from  Richmond,  six  miles  distant,  though  there  were  others  on  the 
eligible  list  from  Richmond  itself. 

Nor  did  he  confine  his  recommendations  to  those  highest  on  the  list. 
Logan,  a  Republican,  was  higher  than  Starr,  a  Democrat,  yet  Starr  was 
recommended  and  appointed. 

It  was  clear  enough  as  to  these  Richmond  positions  that  Mr.  Gray, 
whose  recommendations  had  filled  them  all  with  Democrats,  got  men  whom 
he  considered  politically  useful  to  him  in  place  of  those  who  had  formerly 
entered  by  genuine  competitive  examinations. 

To  see  how  these  changes  worked  in  individual  cases  let  us  take  the  ex- 
ample of  the  carrier  Joseph  Peltz.  He  had  been  admitted  to  the  service  on 
competitive  examination  in  1909,  being  the  highest  on  the  list  and  passing 
with  a  record  of  97  per  cent.  He  served  faithfully.  Postmaster  Beck  himself 
told  me  that  Peltz  was  an  efficient  carrier.  He  furnished  his  own  auto- 
mobile with  which  he  distributed  the  mail  on  his  route  for  a  salary  of  $1200. 
He  was  dismissed  to  make  place  for  two  Democratic  supporters  of  Congress- 
man Gray  who  divided  his  route  between  them  (with  some  other  territory) 
for  a  salary  of  $1 800  each.  Yet  he  and  the  other  dismissed  carriers  had  all 
received  from  the  government  a  little  book  of  "instructions"  which  stated: 
16 


242  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

These  changes  were,  however,  accompanied  with  such  bad 
results  in  many  parts  of  the  country  that  an  outcry  arose 
against  them  and  even  in  Congress  speeches  were  made  and 
resolutions  offered  denouncing  them^  even  by  members  of 
the  President's  own  party.  The  Post  Office  Department  evi- 
dently found  that  the  path  to  patronage  was  not  uniformly 
lined  with  primroses  and  the  brakes  had  to  be  put  on  before 
the  rural  free  delivery  service  was  generally  reorganized. 

THE  COMMISSION  CONCEALS  ELIGIBLE  LISTS 

Another  abuse  was  the  refusal  of  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission to  allow  an  inspection  of  its  eligible  lists.  The  League 
had  been  for  some  years  trying  in  vain  to  secure  access  to 
information  showing  to  what  extent  the  law  was  violated. 
On  April  13,  1914,  the  secretary  applied  for  permission  to 
examine  the  Commission's  records  as  to  fourth-class  post- 
masters but  the  Commission  answered  that  it  was  compelled 


"Politics  or  religious  afifiliations  of  applicants  are  given  no  consideration 
nor  are  political  endorsements  entertained."  "A  rural  carrier  will  not  be 
removed  except  upon  written  specific  charges  filed  with  the  Post  Office 
Department  of  which  he  shall  have  full  notice  nor  until  he  has  had  an 
opportunity  for  defense. "  Could  this  carrier  be  blamed  if  under  these  cir- 
cumstances he  considered  these  assurances  of  his  government  a  hollow 
mockery? 

The  effect,  however,  of  putting  inexperienced  carriers  on  routes  with 
which  they  were  unfamiliar  in  the  winter  season  was  quite  unexpected  to 
Mr.  Gray  and  startling  to  the  entire  community.  Mail  remained  undeliv- 
ered for  days  and  weeks.  Great  masses  of  it  were  stuffed  away  in  the 
cellar  of  the  Richmond  post  office.  One  or  more  of  the  new  carriers 
resigned  in  disgust,  and  the  entire  county  was  indignant  at  the  abominable 
service  rendered  as  the  result  of  the  peanut  politics  shown  by  this  peddling 
of  petty  patronage  at  the  expense  of  the  community.  Day  after  day  the 
newspapers  teemed  with  complaints.  Mr.  Gray's  responsibility  was 
everywhere  recognized  and  at  the  next  election  the  voters  defeated  him.  In 
June,  191 7,  he  again  became  a  candidate,  and  was  defeated  at  a  special 
election  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 

^  In  a  speech  by  Mr.  Gillette  which  appears  in  the  Congressional  Record 
of  August  16,  1916,  these  matters  were  described  in  detail  substantially  as 
given  above. 


THE  COMMISSION  CONCEALS  ELIGIBLE  LISTS  243 

to  deny  the  request  "in  the  interest  of  public  business  owing 
to  congestion  of  work  in  the  office. " 

On  December  29,  191 5,  when  I  was  investigating  the 
appointment  of  rural  carriers  in  Wayne  County,  Indiana,  I 
called  at  the  office  of  the  Commission  in  Washington,  and 
asked  leave  to  inspect  these  lists  for  that  county  to  ascer- 
tain in  what  cases  the  highest  man  had  been  selected  and 
whether  any  political  influences  dictated  the  appointments. 
But  after  two  of  its  members  had  orally  promised  to  send 
me  copies,  the  Commission  finally  decided  they  could  not  be 
furnished. ' 

In  the  meantime  the  Council  of  the  League  on  January  28th 
declared  that  it  was  interested  in  terminating  a  policy  of  se- 
crecy which  gave  to  Congressmen  information  for  the  pur- 

^  I  was  informed  of  this  in  a  letter  dated  January  5, 1916,  which  gave  the 
following  reasons: 

"That  the  practice  was  found  seriously  detrimental  to  the  interests  of 
eligibles  and  of  the  public  service  and  that  little  good  purpose  was  served 
by  it.  One  large  corporation  indeed  dismissed  every  employee  upon  his 
applying  for  examination.  In  certain  sections  of  the  country  eligibles  of 
one  social  class  objected  to  their  names  appearing  in  public  on  the  eligible 
list,  sometimes  at  low  grades  as  compared  with  others  of  a  different  class, 
resulting  in  white  Democrats  in  the  South  refusing  to  take  the  examina- 
tions, being  chagrined  upon  finding  their  names  publicly  posted*  In  small 
communities  prying  curiosity  led  to  the  humiliation  of  eligibles.  The  fact 
that  persons  were  candidates  for  public  employment  operated  against  them 
in  seeking  to  secure  outside  employment.  .  .  .  The  lists  were  used  for 
advertising,  and  at  times  for  corrupt  purposes;  whatever  administration 
was  in  power  was  subjected  to  being  harassed  by  partisan  attack  and  being 
made  the  subject  of  misrepresentation  and  abuse.  ..." 

To  this  I  answered: 

"The  reasons  given  in  your  letter  for  denying  these  lists  are  none  of  them 
applicable  here.  There  is  no  'large  corporation'  which  will  dismiss  these 
applicants  for  rural  carriers'  places,  nor  any  'social  class'  to  ostracize  them 
because  their  names  appear,  nor  is  there  any  question  of  '  white  Democrats 
in  the  South'  competing  with  negroes,  nor  'prying  curiosity'  to  'humili- 
ate the  applicants.'  The  lists  will  not  be  used  for  'advertising'  nor  for 
'corrupt  purposes. '  On  the  contrary  the  purpose  is  to  expose  corruption. 
If  the  administration  in  power  should  be  'harassed  by  partisan  attacks' 
it  will  be  only  because  of  the  partisan  action  of  its  own  Post  Office  Depart- 
ment and  its  own  members  of  Congress.  If  this  be  indeed  the  reason  for 
your  hiding  these  lists  the  world  ought  to  know  it. " 


244  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

pose  of  defeating  the  merit  system  and  declined  to  give  the 
same  information  to  the  League  to  expose  abuses. 

In  a  meeting  between  members  of  the  Commission  and 
representatives  of  the  League  on  March  31,  1916,  at  a  dinner 
given  at  Washington  by  John  Joy  Edson,  one  of  the  Council, 
Commissioner  Mcllhenny  said  he  could  not  recede  from  the 
decision  to  refuse  access  to  the  records  since  if  this  were  given 
it  might  lead  to  criticism  of  the  administration  and  might  seri- 
ously embarrass  it.  Commissioner  Cravens  concurred  in  this 
determination. 

The  League  now  took  up  the  matter  with  the  President, 
and  on  July  3,  19 16,  sent  a  memorandum  asking  him  to  put 
an  end  to  this  policy  of  secrecy. 

This  letter  the  President  answered  on  July  19th,  saying  that 
he  had  referred  the  correspondence  to  the  Commission  with 
the  suggestion  that  in  their  annual  report  they  disclose  the 
method  employed  in  administering  the  executive  order  for 
the  examination  of  fourth-class  postmasters,  together  with 
the  results  obtained  thereby! 

He  added: 

The  Chairman  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  advises  me  .  .  .  that 
his  refusal  to  grant  your  League  access  to  the  civil  service  records  was 
not  based  on  any  fear  that  the  records  would  lead  to  criticism  of  the 
administration.  He  states  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  apprehension 
that  any  proper  criticism  can  be  made  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Executive 
Order  has  been  administered  and  that  his  refusal  to  permit  general  access 
to  the  files  and  the  holding  of  such  records  as  confidential,  investigating  on 
their  merits  all  cases  of  alleged  improper  action  brought  to  the  attention  of 
the  Commission,  is  based  upon  good  administrative  practice  as  is  explained 
in  a  letter  of  the  Commission  to  you  under  date  of  May  27,  1916,  the  trans- 
mission of  which  has  been  delayed. 

The  Commission's  letter  declared  that  it  was  impracticable 
that  individuals  or  associations  should  be  permitted  at  will  to 
search  its  files  and  that  it  was  the  practice  to  consider  official 
records  as  privileged. 

The  Commission  declared,  however,  that  its  actions  as  to  its 
own  administrative  matters  were  at  all  times  within  the  pur- 
view of  every  citizen  under  reasonable  limitations  of  which 
the  Commission  must  be  the  judge.     If  it  was  believed  that 


THE  COMMISSION  CONCEALS  ELIGIBLE  LISTS  245 

the  Commission  was  hiding  things  which  should  be  disclosed  it 
was  competent  for  either  House  of  Congress  to  make  demand 
for  the  records  and  the  Commission  would  then  deter- 
mine its  action.  The  letter  further  added  that  the  League 
was  a  body  not  known  to  the  law,  without  power  to  com- 
pel testimony  and  not  responsible  to  any  constituted  au- 
thority. An  investigation  by  an  outside  body  might  be  ex 
parte,  partisan,  michievous,  imperfect,  and  calculated  grossly 
to  mislead  the  public  and  attack  and  embarrass  an  administra- 
tion. The  Commission  on  the  other  hand  had  the  legal  ma- 
chinery and  experience  to  conduct  such  an  investigation  and  its 
work  might  be  reviewed  by  the  President  and  a  committee 
of  Congress.  These  were  the  checks  upon  maladministration 
and  it  was  the  duty  of  citizens  to  seek  the  betterment  of 
governmental  conditions  through  the  processes  thus  provided. 
The  Commission  requested  the  League  to  send  to  it  the  com- 
plaints and  charges  with  reference  to  fourth-class  postmasters 
and  rural  carriers  for  investigation.  In  other  words  the 
Commission  would  investigate  its  own  delinquencies  and  those 
of  the  department ! 

This  correspondence  was  communicated  to  the  League  at  its 
Council  meeting  at  Stockbridge,  Massachusetts,  on  July  27, 
1 916,  and  our  reply  was  sent  to  President  Wilson  on  August 
1st.     In  it  we  said: 

The  transmission  of  the  Commission's  letter,  as  you  say,  "has  been  de- 
layed. "  In  fact  though  dated  May  27,  1916,  the  letter  did  not  arrive  until 
July  22dl  The  Commission  can  hardly  be  congratulated  upon  its  prompt- 
ness in  the  dispatch  of  public  business  when  a  letter  remains  tmanswered 
for  more  than  three  months,  when  a  subsequent  request  for  an  answer  is 
made  in  vain,  and  when  an  answer  is  finally  sent  only  after  the  Commis- 
sion's delay  has  been  brought  to  your  personal  attention.  .  .  . 

What  the  League  requests  and  the  Commission  refuses,  is  liberty  to 
inspect  the  Commission's  eligible  registers  for  the  position  of  motor  rural 
carriers  and  fourth-class  postmasters  established  since  May,  1913.  The 
propriety  of  the  Commission's  refusal  to  permit  such  an  inspection  involves 
no  considerations  which  might  justify  a  refusal  of  leave  to  inspect  "con- 
fidential letters  or  reports  from  other  departments"  or  "statements  or 
records  entrusted  to  the  Commission  in  confidence"  or  transcripts  of 
"testimony  to  the  Commission"  or  of  leave  to  "search  at  will  the  files  of 
the  National  Commission"  with  which  the  Commission's  letter  deals  in 


246  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

some  detail.  It  tends  merely  to  confusion  to  advert  to  such  matters  as  a 
ground  for  the  Commission's  refusal  to  permit  an  examination  of  the 
records  of  its  own  administrative  acts. 

May  we  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  such  lists  are  constantly 
made  public  in  all  parts  of  the  country  by  State  and  city  civil  service  com- 
missions ?  During  the  entire  existence  of  the  National  Civil  Service 
Reform  League  prior  to  your  administration  information  as  to  the  public 
administrative  work  of  the  Federal  Commission  has  never  been  refused 
to  us,  except  during  a  short  period  in  the  year  1899. 

The  reasons  given  by  the  Commission  for  this  concealment  are  contra- 
dictory and  inconsistent.  In  its  letter  to  the  League  of  April  24,  19 14,  it 
says:  "This  action  is  necessary  in  the  interests  of  public  business  owing  to 
the  congestion  of  the  work  in  the  office. "  Yet  after  we  had  waited  nearly  two 
years,  when  it  might  properly  be  assumed  that  this  congestion  had  been 
overcome,  we  were  told  by  Mr.  Mcllhenny,  the  president  of  the  Commission 
at  our  Washington  conference  on  March  31,  19 16,  that  if  access  were 
given  to  these  records  it  might  lead  to  such  criticism  of  the  administration  as 
would  seriously  embarrass  it.  Finally,  in  its  letter  received  July  22d,  the 
Commission  amplifies  this  ground  for  its  action  by  stating  that  an  investi- 
gation by  an  outside  body  may  "mislead  the  public  and  attack  and 
embarrass  the  administration.**  This,  therefore,  appears  as  the  vital 
reason  for  the  refusal. 

We  think  you  must  have  overlooked  this,  for  we  cannot  assume  that  the 
President  of  the  United  States  could  permit  such  a  reason  to  be  urged  for 
the  concealment  of  official  records  concerning  official  acts  or  that  he 
would  willingly  appear  to  adopt  the  argument  that  such  concealment  is 
necessary  to  preserve  his  administration  from  attack.  .  .  . 

The  Commission  says  in  its  letter  that  it  believes  "the  influence  of  our 
League  in  the  advancement  of  the  cause  of  efficient  public  service  is  incalcu- 
lable," yet  it  refuses  us  the  means  of  prosecuting  our  legitimate  inquiries, 
and  when  we  appeal  to  you  from  its  decision  you  tell  us  that  you  have 
suggested  to  the  Commission  that  in  its  annual  report  for  19 16  it  shall 
disclose  the  methods  employed  in  administering  your  executive  order  of 
May  7,  1913.  It  would  be  a  most  incompetent  body  which  could  not  draw 
up  a  report  furnishing  a  plausible  explanation  for  even  the  gravest  abuses 
and  we  feel  sure  that  neither  the  League  nor  the  public  will  remain  satisfied 
with  a  plan  which  allows  any  department  or  branch  of  the  service  to  be  the 
only  interpreter  of  its  own  conduct  and  denies  to  the  world  all  access  to 
the  evidence  by  which  the  truth  of  its  interpretation  can  be  established 
or  refuted. 

This  letter  was  generally  published  and  excited  widespread 
comment  and  condemnation  of  the  Commission.'     Evidently 

'  See  article  in  New  York  Evening  Post,  August  9,  1916,  St.  Louis  Globe- 
Democratf  August   13,  1916,  BuiGEalo  News,  August  9,  1916,  Philadelphia 


THE  COMMISSION  CONCEALS  ELIGIBLE  LISTS  247 

wincing  under  this  general  disapprobation,  the  Commissioners 
on  August  15th  published  an  official  statement.  In  this  they 
said: 

The  Commission  has  simply  adhered  to  a  policy  under  which  it  has  oper- 
ated since  its  establishment  in  1883 — a  policy  universal  in  all  Governmental 
Departments. 

The  claim  of  the  League  that  with  the  exception  of  a  brief  period  in  1899 
the  Commission  has  heretofore  extended  to  the  League  the  general  privilege 
of  examining  its  files  cannot  be  substantiated.  While  the  Commission  has 
often,  in  its  discretion,  furnished  to  the  League  and  to  private  individuals 
specific  information  regarding  civil  service  matters  the  League  has  never 
possessed  or  exercised  the  general  privilege  of  inspecting  the  files  and 
correspondence  of  the  Commission.  .  .  . 

A  few  days  later  I  addressed  them  the  following  open  letter 
which  was  also  published  pretty  generally  throughout  the 
cotmtry. 

I  have  just  read  the  astounding  declaration  in  your  official  statement 
given  out  last  Monday  night  that  in  refusing  to  the  National  Civil  Service 
Reform  League  access  to  your  eligible  lists  "The  Commission  has  simply 
adhered  to  a  policy  imder  which  it  has  operated  since  its  establishment  in 
1883." 

This  declaration  is  flatly  contradicted  by  the  official  reports  of  the 
Commission  itself  and  by  its  own  public  regulations.  For  instance,  in  the 
Sixth  Report,  p.  3,  is  the  following: 

"A  most  important  change  in  the  policy  of  the  Commission  was  instituted 
by  the  adoption  on  Jime  29,  1889,  of  the  regulation  requiring  that  the  lists 
of  eligibles — that  is  of  those  applicants  successful  in  passing  the  examina- 
tions— be  made  public  with  the  grade  of  each  eligible  attached.  The 
adoption  of  this  regulation  has  already  had  a  most  beneficial  effect.  It  is 
especially  desirable  that  all  proceedings  under  the  law  should  be  free  from 
the  slightest  taint  or  suspicion  of  fraud,  and  it  is  therefore  important  that 
they  should  be  as  open  as  possible." 

This  report  bears  the  distinguished  signatures  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  and 
Governor  Hugh  S.  Thompson,  of  South  Carolina,  than  whom  no  more 
eminent  commissioners  have  ever  filled  the  offices  you  now  occupy.  .  .  . 
Again  you  say  in  your  official  statement  of  Monday: 

"The  claim  of  the  League,  that,  with  the  exception  of  a  brief  period  in 
1899,  the  Commission  has  heretofore  extended  the  general  privilege  of 
examining  its  files,  cannot  be  substantiated." 

Ledger^  August  13, 1916,  Providence  Journal,  August  10, 1916,  and  scores  of 
other  papers.  A  particularly  pimgent  editorial  appeared  August  i6th  in 
the  New  York  Tribune,  entitled  "Caught  with  the  Goods." 


248  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

But  the  League  made  no  such  claim.  In  its  letter  to  the  President  it 
said,  "  Information  as  to  the  public  administrative  work  of  the  Federal  Com- 
mission has  never  been  refused  to  us,  except  during  a  short  period  in  the 
year  1899." 

The  League  never  asked  for  access  to  your  confidential  files,  but  only 
information  as  to  your  public  administrative  work,  and  as  to  that  you  wrote 
me: 

"  Its  action  as  to  administrative  matters  was  at  all  times  within  the  pur- 
view of  every  citizen,  under  reasonable  limitation  of  which  the  Commission 
must  be  the  judge,  and  that  its  files  as  to  such  matters  were  open  to  the 
least  scrap  of  paper  to  anyone  interested  either  pubHcly  or  privately 
therein." 

Are  not  your  lists  of  eligibles,  the  results  of  your  public  examinations, 
administrative  matters?  Yet  the  Commission  has  for  more  than  two  years 
refused  to  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  an  inspection  of  its  own 
eligible  lists — ^at  first  "owing  to  the  congestion  of  work  in  the  office,"  and 
lastly,  lest  such  an  inspection  might  "embarrass  the  Administration." 

The  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League  asked  for  this  inspection,  as  I 
asked  for  it  last  winter — when  you  promised  to  give  it  to  me,  a  promise  you 
did  not  fulfill — ^for  the  purpose  of  determining  whether  the  lists  for  fourth- 
class  postmasterships  or  places  on  the  rural  free  delivery  routes  had  been 
fraudulently  manipulated  for  political  purposes,  and  if  you  refuse  this  on 
such  a  ground,  is  any  other  conclusion  possible  except  that  the  administra- 
tion, protected  by  yoiir  secrecy,  is  guilty  of  the  fraudulent  acts  alleged? 
Can  anything  but  guilt  "embarrass"  the  administration  and  make  neces- 
sary the  veil  of  secrecy  with  which  you  shroud  your  own  official  acts? 
Will  not  the  President  pray  to  be  delivered  from  apologists  and  defend- 
ers who  insist  that  his  administration  must  not  be  "embarrassed"  by  a 
revelation  of  the  truth? 

To  this  the  Commission  did  not  attempt  any  reply.  In 
November,  however,  it  was  announced  that  the  President 
would  reexamine  the  matter  of  the  secrecy  of  these  records 
because,  as  he  said,"  That  is  something  I  owe  the  League  out  of 
respect  for  its  activities."  Up  to  the  present  time,  however, 
no  change  of  policy  has  been  announced  and  the  Commissoners 
who  supported  this  policy  of  concealment  are  still  in  office. 

OTHER  APPOINTMENTS 

The  President  failed  in  several  conspicuous  instances  to 
retain  in  office  men  who  had  risen  by  merit  and  demonstrated 
their  efficiency  in  important  places  and  he  appointed  politicians 


BURLESON'S  SPEECH  249 

to  succeed  them.  Prominent  among  the  former  was  Post- 
master Edward  M.  Morgan  of  New  York  City.  His  connec- 
tion with  the  postal  service  had  extended  over  thirty-five 
years.  He  had  gradually  risen  from  the  rank  of  letter-carrier 
through  various  grades  to  this  important  position  to  which 
he  had  been  appointed  by  President  Roosevelt  and  reappointed 
by  President  Taft.  Thomas  G.  Patten,  a  retired  Congressman 
without  administrative  experience  in  the  government  service, 
was  appointed  to  the  place. 

The  case  of  the  postmaster  of  Brooklyn  was  just  as  bad. 
Walter  C.  Burton  was  a  spoils  politician  and  as  civil  service 
commissioner  of  New  York  he  had  done  what  he  could  to 
degrade  and  debauch  the  merit  system  in  that  State,  for  which 
service  he  was  apparently  rewarded  by  this  important  office. 
Mr.  Wright,  an  experienced  and  efficient  postmaster  at  Nor- 
folk, Virginia,  was  supplanted  by  a  political  appointee.  A 
nimiber  of  similar  cases  could  be  given. 

There  was,  however,  some  gain  in  other  directions,  for 
instance  in  the  position  of  Chief  Post  Office  Inspector.  This 
position,  as  we  have  seen,  was  excepted  from  examination  by 
President  Taft  in  1910,  and  Robert  S.  Sharpe,  an  active 
politician,  had  received  the  appointment.  This  had  given 
rise  to  merited  criticism.  On  February  16,  1913  (just  before 
the  inauguration  of  President  Wilson),  Sharpe  resigned,  and 
on  May  17th,  the  President  on  the  recommendation  of  the 
Postmaster-General  restored  the  position  to  the  competitive 
service  and  promoted  J.  P.  Johnson,  inspector  in  charge  of 
the  St.  Louis  division  to  the  place.  The  positions  of  solicitor 
of  the  Post  Office  Department  and  of  first,  second,  and  third 
assistant  Postmasters-General  were  also  filled  by  men  of  ex- 
perience and  apparently  without  regard  to  political  consider- 
ations, but  the  fourth  assistant  was  a  political  appointment, 
and  it  was  precisely  in  this  place  that  the  scandal  in  the  rural 
free  delivery  service  arose. 

Burleson's  speech 

An  interesting  episode  occurred  at  the  annual  meeting  of 
the  League  at  New  Haven  on  December  5,  19 16.     The  Post- 


250  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

master-General  had  declared  that  the  criticisms  made  by  the 
League  were  unjust  and  that  we  owed  him  an  apology.  In 
order  to  give  him  the  opportunity  to  set  himself  right  an 
invitation  was  extended  to  him  to  speak  on  this  occasion,  and 
he  came.  The  meeting  was  held  in  one  of  the  assembly  halls 
of  Yale  College  and  President  Hadley  was  chairman.  Mr. 
Richard  H.  Dana,  the  president  of  the  League,  first  delivered 
his  annual  address.  Mr.  Burleson  followed  in  a  written  speech 
in  defense  of  his  administration  and  I  concluded  with  some 
remarks  in  reply. 

The  Postmaster-General  referred  to  his  first  annual  report 
in  which  he  said  that  the  prime  consideration  should  be  to 
recognize  efficiency  and  eliminate  partisanship  so  that  ulti- 
mately all  positions  should  be  included  in  the  classified  service. 
He  reminded  us  that  in  his  Department  there  were  then  just 
seven  places  not  so  included,  those  of  the  four  assistant  Post- 
masters-General, the  solicitor  and  chief  inspector  for  the 
Department,  and  his  own  private  secretary;  that  these  ap- 
pointments had  all  been  made  from  experienced  men  and  that 
only  one,  the  fourth  assistant,  was  political. 

The  question  of  the  fourth-class  postmasters,  he  said,  pre- 
sented a  serious  problem.  Many  of  these  had  been  selected 
for  purely  partisan  reasons  and  then  blanketed  into  the  classi- 
fied service  by  the  orders  of  former  Presidents  without  any 
proper  tests  of  qualifications.  "What,"  he  asked,  "could 
any  one  genuinely  believing  in  the  merit  system  do  but  ask  for 
a  revocation  of  these  orders?"  He  knew  this  would  be  mis- 
understood, but  refusing  to  acquiesce  in  the  degradation  of 
the  service  he  had  asked  the  President  to  issue  the  order  of  May 
7,  1 913,  for  a  new  competitive  examination.  How  could  any 
civil  service  reformer  logically  object  to  this?  It  was  a  laud- 
able effort  to  secure  the  best  men  without  reference  to  party 
affiliations  and  was  in  thorough  harmony  with  the  civil  service 
law,  yet  the  League  had  opposed  this  action  as  impracticable. 
It  was  stated  that  incumbents  belonging  to  the  opposite 
party  were  unjustly  displaced  and  that  he  had  invited  Congress- 
men of  his  own  political  faith  to  report  on  the  comparative 
merit  of  eligibles.    This  was  a  mistake.     He  had  invited  no 


BURLESON'S  SPEECH  251 

one  to  report  on  ' '  comparative  * '  qualifications.  All  Congress- 
men were  informed  that  any  information  permissible  under 
the  civil  service  rules  would  be  considered.  They  were  given 
every  opportunity  to  speak  with  reference  to  the  character 
and  residence  of  applicants.  Congressmen,  he  said,  were  not 
asked  to  recommend  candidates  nor  were  any  recommenda- 
tions received  or  considered. 

He  also  gave  in  some  detail  the  percentages  of  incumbents 
and  of  the  highest  eligibles  who  had  been  appointed  (as  given 
above  on  pp.  235 ,  236) .  The  records  of  the  Commission  showed 
why  in  the  few  cases  indicated  the  second  or  third  man  was 
chosen  in  preference  to  the  first  but  the  Commission  rightly 
declined  to  make  this  information  public  because  in  many 
cases  the  record  was  prejudicial  to  candidates.  But  it  might 
be  seen  by  any  responsible  person  who  desired  to  know  the 
Department's  reasons  for  not  appointing  the  first  man. 

When  one  of  these  fourth-class  post  offices  was  raised  to  the 
presidential  grade  he  informed  the  political  adviser  in  the  case 
that  the  Department  preferred,  unless  there  were  substantial 
reasons  to  the  contrary,  to  continue  the  incumbent  as  a  presi- 
dential appointee.  The  same  conscientious  observance  of  the 
civil  service  law  had  ruled  in  the  matter  of  removals.  Presi- 
dential postmasters  appointed  by  previous  administrations 
had  been  permitted  to  serve  out  their  four-year  terms  except 
where  investigation  had  shown  that  they  were  incompetent 
or  neglectful.  A  few  had  been  removed  for  political  activity 
but  these  cases  had  been  referred  by  him  to  the  Commission, 
although  no  such  action  had  ever  previously  been  taken  by 
any  cabinet  officer.  Mr.  Burleson  stated  that  he  had  opposed 
the  provision  to  remove  assistant  postmasters  from  the  classi- 
fied service  and  that  he  had  established  scientific  efficiency 
records  and  ratings  as  a  basis  for  promotions.  These  were  the 
things  that  had  been  done.  Whether  civil  service  reformers 
were  moved  to  praise  or  censure  was  for  them  to  determine. 
In  either  event  he  stood  by  the  record. 

As  to  the  future  he  had  recommended  that  all  postmasters 
be  classified,  and,  if  he  could,  he  would  classify  every  position 
save  that  of  the  Postmaster-General.     The  ideal  system  would 


252  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

be  one  under  which  every  postmaster,  if  by  merit  he  could 
earn  it,  would  have  within  his  reach  the  postmastership  of 
the  largest  city  in  the  United  States. 

This  address  was  upon  its  face  a  strong  presentation  of  the 
case  of  the  Postmaster-General  and  manifestly  made  a  favor- 
able effect  upon  the  audience. 

In  reply  I  congratulated  the  League  and  the  country  on  the 
principles  he  had  just  expressed  and  remarked  that  some  ex- 
planation was  due  of  the  reasons  why  it  had  appeared  to  the 
League  that  in  the  application  of  those  principles  he  had  not 
observed  the  requirements  of  the  law.  After  expressing  our  ap- 
preciation of  the  classification  of  the  chief  post  office  inspector 
I  took  up  the  order  of  May  13,  1913,  providing  for  the  exami- 
nation of  the  fourth-class  postmasters.  In  the  argument  made 
by  the  League  in  regard  to  that  order  it  had  been  distinctly 
stated  that  if  honestly  administered  and  fairly  conducted 
there  would  be  no  criticism  of  the  examination  but  that  we  did 
not  acquiesce  in  the  propriety  of  prescribing  it  unless  political 
influences  were  kept  out  of  the  appointment  after  the  examination 
was  made.  I  next  quoted  Section  10  of  the  law.  The  spoils 
system,  I  contended,  had  its  root  in  congressional  patronage. 
Congressmen  recommended  and  their  recommendations  were 
followed  and  thus  the  spoils  of  office  were  divided  among  them. 
Therefore  Section  10  provided  that  recommendations  should 
not  be  received  or  considered  except  as  to  character  or  resi- 
dence. There  was  no  more  vital  principle  anywhere  in  the  civil 
service  law  than  in  Section  10.  The  Postmaster-General 
denied  that  he  had  asked  for  "  comparative  recommendations* ' 
but  I  quoted  his  order  where  he  said  it  was  his  practice  to  ask 
Congressmen  to  advise  him  relative  to  the  character  and 
fitness  of  the  three  eligihles.  That  was  the  thing  which  the 
statute  said  he  should  not  do.  Congressmen  had  interpreted 
his  request  as  authorizing  political  recommendations. 

I  cited  the  Hicks  case  in  Indiana,  the  Hoke  Smith  case  in 
Georgia  where  Democrats  got  the  appointments  because  they 
were  Democrats  and  Republicans  were  excluded  because  they 
were  Republicans.  Whether  the  percentage  was  large  or 
small,  politics  followed  and  the  League  had  a  right  to  protest. 


BURLESON'S  SPEECH  253 

If  the  appointments  were  uniformly  made  on  competitive 
principles  why  had  the  League  been  unable  to  secure  an  ex- 
amination of  the  records  showing  the  grades  of  the  eligibles? 
It  was  a  maxim  of  jurisprudence  that  where  anyone  sup- 
pressed evidence,  the  presimiption  was  against  him.  We  had 
not  asked  for  confidential  records  which  might  injure  the 
character  of  applicants  but  only  for  the  eligible  lists  and  the 
Commission  had  refused  inspection. 

After  approving  the  Postmaster-General's  action  in  regard 
to  removals  I  next  considered  the  rural  free  delivery  service. 
Nothing  in  the  law  which  authorized  an  increase  in  the  car- 
rier's pay  to  $1800  if  he  used  an  automobile  and  served  a  route 
of  fifty  miles  justified  the  Postmaster-General  in  creating  a 
new  service  of  "motor  rural  carriers"  and  abolishing  the  old 
service  on  these  routes.  As  Senator  Cimmiins  said  in  his  letter 
to  the  Commission: 

It  might  just  as  well  be  claimed  that  when  the  route  is  changed  from 
twenty  miles  to  twenty-five  miles  that  a  new  position  had  been  created,  as 
to  claim  that  when  the  route  is  lengthened  to  fifty  miles  and  necessitates  an 
automobile  a  new  position  is  brought  into  existence.  .  .  .  While  the 
incoming  carriers  on  motor  routes  must  enter  through  competition  the  old 
carriers  lose  absolutely  a  valuable  right  which  was  intended  to  be  protected 
by  the  civil  service  law. 

I  related  the  experience  of  my  own  city  of  Richmond  where 
all  the  old  carriers,  good  and  bad,  had  been  turned  out  and 
where,  upon  the  recommendation  of  the  Congressman,  Demo- 
crats had  been  appointed  to  all  the  new  places.  Of  course 
God  might  have  given  those  particular  Democrats  the  power  to 
pass  better  examinations  than  others  but  unfortunately  they 
did  not  stand  highest  on  the  list. 

I  criticized  the  examinations  in  which  the  applicants  were 
not  graded  at  all  on  their  ability  to  run  automobiles,  the  only 
new  duty  required,  and  in  which  a  single  omitted  punctuation 
mark  would  offset  a  whole  year's  faithful  service. 

I  closed  my  remarks  with  a  review  of  the  course  of  the 
administration  in  giving  the  great  ambassadorships  to  large 
contributors  of  campaign  funds  and  called  attention  to  the 
resolutions  of  the  League  passed  that  very  day  censuring  this 


254  THE  WILSON  ADMINISTRATION 

practice,  and  I  insisted  that  no  matter  what  administration 
was  in  power  the  League  would  remain  true  to  the  principles 
it  always  advocated. 

I  noticed  that  as  I  proceeded  in  the  discussion  the  audience 
(which  consisted  not  only  of  members  of  the  League  but  of  a 
large  ntmiber  of  students)  became  greatly  interested.  I  could 
see  them  looking  at  the  Postmaster-General  with  smiles  upon 
their  faces.  He  moved  around  uneasily  in  his  seat  and  ap- 
peared to  be  most  indignant,  talking  part  of  the  time  very 
earnestly  with  Mr.  Dana  who  sat  beside  him,  and  as  I  con- 
cluded amid  considerable  applause  and  the  meeting  adjourned, 
he  arose,  passed  directly  in  front  of  me  and  very  close  without 
recognizing  my  presence,  and  stalked  solemnly  and  impres- 
sively out  of  the  room. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

Wilson's  second  term — conclusion 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  that  Mr.  Wilson's  first 
term  had  been  mainly  reactionary.  But  unsatisfactory  as  it 
was  we  could  not  help  seeing  how  much  more  so  it  might  be  if 
Vice-President  Marshall  should  ever  succeed  to  the  office  of 
Chief  Executive.  In  a  campaign  speech  at  Terre  Haute  early 
in  September,  1916,  he  said: 

Did  I  say  civil  service  or  snivel  service?  They  both  mean  the  same.  We 
found  the  offices  guarded  by  snivel  service  and  our  only  regret  was  that  we 
couldn't  pry  more  of  the  places  loose  and  fill  them  with  Democrats.  If 
there  is  any  office  imder  the  government  which  a  Democrat  can't  fill  I 
believe  that  office  should  be  aboHshed. 

When  the  campaign  of  1916  came  on  attempts  were  made 
by  the  League  to  secure  declarations  in  favor  of  the  classifica- 
tion of  presidential  postmasters  in  the  platforms  of  the  various 
parties  but  it  was  unsuccessful.  The  candidates  did  better. 
Mr.  Hughes  declared  that  he  favored  such  legislation  and  Mr. 
Wilson  on  November  6th,  the  day  before  election,  wrote  to  the 
League  to  the  same  effect. 

This  issue  was  not  prominent  in  the  campaign,  which  turned 
mainly  upon  the  absorbing  questions  resulting  from  the  great 
struggle  in  Europe,  and  Mr.  Wilson  was  chosen  by  a  small 
majority  mainly  because  he  had  "kept  us  out  of  war." 

But  after  his  inauguration  things  began  to  improve.  Mr. 
Wilson  was  personally  friendly  to  the  merit  system.  It  had 
been  the  pressure  of  Congress  and  of  party  followers  which  had 
led  to  his  shortcomings.  He  now  took  an  important  forward 
step.    The  Postmaster-General  had  recommended,  as  we  have 

255 


256  WILSON'S  SECOND  TERM 

seen,  the  classification  of  all  post  offices  but  Congress  had 
disregarded  the  recommendations  and  no  law  was  passed.  But 
the  President  now  determined  to  take  the  responsibility  him- 
self and  on  March  31st  he  issued  an  executive  order  providing 
that  whenever  a  vacancy  occurred  in  the  position  of  postmaster 
of  the  first,  second,  or  third  class  as  the  result  of  death,  resigna- 
tion, removal,  or  on  the  recommendation  of  the  Postmaster- 
General  the  Civil  Service  Commission  should  hold  an  open 
competitive  examination  and  certify  the  result  thereof  to  the 
Postmaster-General,  who  should  submit  to  the  President  the 
name  of  the  highest  qualified  eligible. 

There  was  one  feature  of  this  order  which  went  beyond  the 
general  method  of  appointments  adopted  for  other  places. 
The  Commission  was  to  certify  to  the  President  not  three 
names  but  one,  the  highest,  to  be  nominated  for  the  place. 
This  would  exclude  the  limited  opportunity  for  patronage 
afforded  by  the  selection  of  one  man  out  of  three.  So  far 
it  conformed  to  the  best  ideals.  But  on  the  other  hand  no 
provision  was  made  for  a  new  examination  whenever  the  term 
of  an  incumbent  should  expire.  The  Postmaster-General  ex- 
plained that  incumbents  who  were  rendering  good  service 
would  not  be  disturbed. 

In  this  order  Mr.  Wilson  and  the  Postmaster-General  were 
not  prepared  to  take  the  medicine  which  they  had  themselves 
prescribed  in  respect  to  fourth-class  postmasters  appointed 
under  previous  administrations  and  require  all  in  the  service 
to  submit  to  competitive  tests.  In  other  words  Mr.  Wilson 
having  now  filled  the  offices  largely  with  Democrats  adopted 
substantially  the  same  policy  of  "covering  them  all  in  "  against 
which  he  and  his  Postmaster-General  had  objected  when  they 
ordered  the  examination  of  all  fourth-class  postmasters  and  of 
motor  free  delivery  carriers. 

But  although  consistency  was  abandoned,  civil  service  re- 
formers have  the  same  reason  to  rejoice  as  they  had  when 
Cleveland,  Harrison,  Roosevelt,  and  Taft  made  their  exten- 
sions of  the  service.  The  method  adopted  by  the  President 
however  was  a  complete  refutation  of  the  Postmaster-Gen- 
eral's argument  at  our  League  meeting,  when  he  criticized 


A  RETROSPECT  257 

the  previous  inclusion  of  the  fourth-class  postmasterships 
without  requiring  an  examination. 

The  number  of  offices  affected  was  10,339  and  among  these 
were  some  of  the  most  important  in  the  country.  It  cannot 
yet  be  said  that  this  order  is  permanent.  The  Senate  has 
still  the  right  to  confirm  and  may  refuse  confirmation  of 
presidential  nominations  made  as  the  result  of  competitive 
examinations. 

When  a  Republican  administration  comes  into  power  will  it 
adopt  the  President's  classification  as  final  or  will  it  follow  the 
example  of  Mr.  Wilson  and  provide  for  new  examinations  of  all 
these  places  with  perhaps  the  same  partisan  reconstruction 
of  the  service  as  in  the  case  of  fourth-class  postmasters  and 
rural  free  delivery  carriers?  If  so  there  will  be  another  period 
of  retrogression. 

But  unless  some  such  backward  step  be  taken  hereafter 
this  most  important  branch  of  the  service  will  be  redeemed 
from  the  blight  of  spoils  politics  and  the  President  and  his 
Postmaster-General  will  be  entitled  to  the  credit  for  that  most 
important  achievement. 

A  RETROSPECT 

In  this  survey  of  the  progress  of  the  competitive  system,  the 
observer  will  notice  a  striking  similarity  in  the  conduct  of 
nearly  every  President.  Every  one  of  them  since  the  Pendle- 
ton Act  has  been  personally  favorable  to  the  system  and  if 
left  to  himself  would  not  only  have  enforced  the  law  but  would 
have  extended  its  application  more  rapidly  and  consistently 
than  was  actually  done.  Yet  each  was  subject  to  tremendous 
pressure  not  only  from  office  seekers  but  from  powerful  or- 
ganizations in  his  own  party,  a  pressure  so  overwhelming 
that  perhaps  no  man  could  wholly  resist  it,  and  the  net  gain 
was  the  resultant  of  two  opposing  forces. 

In  my  opinion  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  more  consistent  and 
energetic  than  any  other  President  in  advancing  the  reform. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  he  followed  the  administra- 
tion of  a  President  belonging  to  his  own  party  and  the  on- 

17 


258  WILSON'S  SECOND  TERM 

slaught  upon  the  system  was  not  so  formidable  as  in  the  case, 
for  instance,  of  Mr.  Cleveland  whose  own  supporters  had  been 
so  long  excluded  from  the  patronage  during  his  first  adminis- 
tration that  they  were  all  but  unanimous  in  their  opposition. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  had  also  the  advantage  of  a  detailed  knowledge 
of  the  working  of  the  competitive  system  acquired  by  his  long 
experience  as  commissioner.  A  great  deal  of  charity  will  no 
doubt  be  extended  by  history  even  to  the  imperfect  measure 
of  success  attained  either  in  extending  the  reform  or  in  resisting 
the  attacks  upon  it.  But  I  have  conceived  it  to  be  the  duty  of 
one  who  is  devoted  to  the  competitive  system  to  judge  each 
administration  by  the  highest  practicable  standard  of  achieve- 
ment and  this  I  have  endeavored  to  do  in  the  foregoing  pages. 
The  general  result  has  been  on  the  whole  most  gratifying. 
The  classified  service  has  grown  from  about  14,000  places 
following  the  enactment  of  the  law  to  more  than  300,000  places 
to-day.  The  law  in  the  main  is  observed.  Political  coercion 
and  activity  within  the  service  has  greatly  diminished.  The 
rules  have  been  developed  and  strengthened  and  more  impor- 
tant than  all  the  need  of  competitive  rather  than  political 
methods  in  determining  qualifications  for  office  has  gradually 
permeated  the  consciousness  of  our  people  until  their  approval 
of  the  reform  system  has  become  widespread  and  general. 

CONCLUSION 

It  is  now  time  to  close.  Another  epoch  is  upon  us.  In 
April,  1 91 7,  our  country  passed  from  the  field  of  diplomacy  to 
the  solemn  fact  of  war.  We  are  now  participants  in  the 
greatest  struggle  in  which  mankind  was  ever  engaged.  Under 
these  conditions  what  is  to  be  the  fate  of  the  reform  ?  Will  this 
progress  toward  good  administration  be  submerged  in  the 
seething  waves  of  the  conflict  or  will  it  be  realized  that  the 
competitive  system  is  even  more  necessary  to  secure  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  nation  in  this  crisis  than  it  was  during  the  piping 
times  of  peace?  If  the  great  resources  of  America  are  to  be 
made  effective  in  this  struggle  for  himian  liberty,  personal  and 
party  considerations  must  be  wholly  subordinated  to  patriotic 


CONCLUSION  259 

duty.  Men  must  be  selected  for  the  civil  service  on  account  of 
merit  and  because  of  their  fitness  for  the  places  to  which  they 
are  chosen.  This  can  only  be  done  if  the  competitive  system 
is  maintained  in  its  integrity  and  extended  to  the  vast  multi- 
tude of  new  offices  which  have  to  be  created  for  the  successful 
prosecution  of  the  war.  There  never  was  a  time  where  the 
efforts  of  the  Reform  League  were  so  essential  to  our  national 
welfare.  It  is  bound  to  insist  with  greater  energy  than  ever 
before  that  selections  made  by  patronage  and  political  favor 
shall  not  be  allowed  to  open  the  floodgates  of  corruption, 
either  during  the  war  or  reconstruction  that  shall  follow  it. 

New  questions  are  boimd  to  arise  which  demand  greater 
effort  and  energy  than  those  already  decided.  The  absorp- 
tion by  the  government  of  our  railways  and  other  industries 
opens  an  immense  field  of  new  activities  which  are  likely 
to  outlast  the  war  and  become  part  of  the  permanent  policy 
of  a  greatly  socialized  state.  In  all  these  new  places  there 
will  be  at  first  discretionary  appointments  under  political 
control — that  same  germ  of  evil  which  led  to  the  growth  of 
the  spoils  system  in  the  past.  Can  it  be  eliminated  or  will  the 
enormously  enlarged  field  of  government  industries  form  the 
great  "bribery  chest"  of  future  political  corruption? 

Then  when  our  millions  of  veterans  return  from  the  war  and 
find  their  places  in  industrial  life  largely  occupied  by  others 
it  is  natural  and  inevitable  that  many  of  them,  especially  those 
disabled  in  the  service,  will  claim  that  preference  in  appoint- 
ments which  these  patriotic  sacrifices  will  have  so  eminently 
deserved.  Can  such  a  claim  be  resisted?  Or  can  it  be  recog- 
nized in  such  a  way  as  still  to  keep  our  civil  service  from  the 
baneful  influences  of  favoritism  and  patronage? 

These  are  among  the  vital  problems  which  we  who  are  pass- 
ing from  the  field  of  action  must  leave  to  those  who  shall  take 
up  the  task.  God  grant  to  them  the  clear  wisdom  and  un- 
flagging zeal  which  characterized  George  William  Curtis  and 
our  other  eminent  leaders  in  the  early  days  of  the  reform 
and  to  our  country  the  same  happy  fortune  as  that  which  has 
hitherto  conducted  it  safely  and  triumphantly  through  every 
crisis  of  its  national  life. 


APPENDIX  I 

CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM' 

With  each  new  political  contest  the  line  of  principle  dividing  the  two 
great  parties  has  been  less  clearly  drawn,  the  platforms  of  each  of 
them  have  become  more  vague  and  their  candidates  less  and  less  the 
exponents  of  any  definite  idea.  The  matter  at  issue  resolves  itself  more 
into  the  question  "who  shall  have  the  offices."  Everything  else  seems  to 
be  secondary  to  the  distribution  of  the  loaves  and  fishes.  If  this  continues 
we  can  have  no  healthful  Republican  government.  No  party  is  worthy  to 
rule  where  the  paramount  question  is  the  mere  possession  of  power. 

The  evils  which  flow  from  such  a  system  are  manifold.  The  party  in 
power,  however  corrupt,  feels  that  it  has  a  vast  multitude  of  supporters 
in  every  district  in  the  country  bound  body  and  soul  to  its  maintenance 
by  motives  wholly  mercenary  and  selfish.  In  every  political  contest 
himdreds  of  thousands  on  each  side  support  the  claims  of  the  parties  and 
their  candidates  regardless  of  the  principles  involved,  wholly  from  the 
hope  of  private  gain  and  selfish  ambition  for  office  and  power.  This  ex- 
tends through  every  grade  of  society  down  to  the  lowest.  Parton  says 
"he  once  knew  an  apple- woman  in  Wall  Street  who  had  a  personal  interest 
in  the  election  of  President.  If  her  candidate  won  her  'old  man'  would 
be  a  porter  in  a  warehouse."  Officials  are  chosen  for  the  party  services 
they  have  rendered  or  will  render.  The  government,  which  ought  to  be 
serv^ed  by  the  best  men  in  the  coimtry,  is  actually  served,  to  a  great  extent, 
by  the  most  mercenary  and  incompetent.  Men  whose  talents  enable  them 
to  acquire  a  competency  in  private  life  will  not  enter  a  service,  the  term  of 
which  may  expire  at  any  time,  and  which  is  certain  to  end  whenever  a 
new  party  comes  into  power.  "At  the  end  of  each  four  years  the  entire 
federal  patronage  (amounting  to  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand  offices) 
is  collected  into  one  lot,  and  the  people  divide  themselves  into  two  parties 
struggling  in  name  to  choose  a  President  but  in  fact  to  control  this  enor- 
mous patronage,  which  the  President,  when  elected,  is  compelled  to  dis- 
tribute. The  temptation  to  fraud,  to  usurpation,  and  to  corruption,  thus 
created,  is  beyond  calculation.    A  prize  so  great,  an  influence  so  powerful, 

*  An  argument  delivered  before  the  State  Senate  of  Indiana,  February 

17,  1885. 

961 


262  APPENDIX  I 

thus  centralized  and  put  up  at  short  periods,  would  jeopardize  the  peace 
and  safety  of  any  nation.  No  nation  can  withstand  a  strife  among  its  own 
people  so  general,  so  intense,  and  so  demoralizing.  No  contrivance  so 
efiFectual  to  embarrass  government,  to  disturb  the  public  peace,  to  destroy 
political  honesty,  and  to  endanger  the  common  security,  was  ever  before 
invented."     (Report  of  Committee  on  Election  Frauds,  1879.) 

The  reform  heretofore  proposed  for  these  evils  has  been  to  turn  out  the 
party  in  power  under  which  they  have  existed,  and  fill  the  places  by  new 
men  taken  from  another  political  organization.  The  reform  which  the 
Democratic  party  proposes  is  to  turn  out  Republicans  and  put  in  Demo- 
crats. The  reform  which  the  Republican  party  will  perhaps  propose  will 
be  to  turn  out  Democrats  and  put  in  Republicans.  There  must  be  a 
"rotation  in  office,"  in  the  opinion  of  all  those  who  are  out,  while  those 
who  are  in  devote  themselves  to  the  perpetuation  of  patronage  and  spoils. 
A  moment's  thought  will  show  that  merely  to  change  an  administration  is 
a  cltmisy  way  to  reform  its  abuses.  It  turns  out  the  good  as  well  as  the 
bad;  the  faithful  servant  as  well  as  the  spoilsman  and  the  sinecurist;  the 
honest  officer  as  well  as  the  jobber.  It  is  Uke  the  system  of  the  mother 
who  whipped  all  her  children  in  turn.  It  does  not  encourage  merit.  The 
man  who  does  his  duty  finds  that  his  tenure  is  no  more  secure  than  that  of 
the  man  who  violates  it.  The  fear  of  removal  for  corrupt  practices  may 
operate  in  some  general  and  impersonal  manner  upon  the  party  as  a  whole, 
and  thus  act  as  some  slight  restraint,  but  it  does  not  appeal  personally  and 
directly  to  any  individual  in  the  service.  Moreover,  a  reformation  accom- 
plished in  this  manner  may  be  wrought  at  the  sacrifice  of  some  greater 
principle  even  than  civil  service  reform,  and  the  time  is  not  distant  in  the 
recollection  of  all  of  us  when  those  who  would  have  sought  reform  in  this 
manner  must  have  attained  it,  if  at  all,  by  elevating  to  power  an  adminis- 
tration which  regarded  the  war  as  a  failure,  the  negro  as  a  chattel,  and  the 
inflation  of  our  currency  and  partial  repudiation  of  our  debt  as  national 
blessings.  Reform,  even  had  it  then  been  needed,  could  not  have  been  had 
at  such  a  price  as  that.  But  even  where  reform  follows  a  mere  change,  it  is 
and  always  must  be  of  the  most  temporary  character.  The  argument  of 
those  who  want  power  is  that  "a  new  broom  sweeps  clean,"  but  a  new 
broom  soon  becomes  old  and  worn  with  use.  Neither  of  the  two  great 
parties  in  the  coxmtry  to-day  can  say  that  the  mere  personnel  of  its  adher- 
ents is  such  as  to  secure  it  against  the  temptations  of  long-continued 
power.  We  are  not  gods,  but  men;  and  the  party  that  cries  so  clamorously 
for  reform  when  out  of  office  contains  within  itself  as  much  of  hvmian  frailty 
as  that  which  holds  for  the  time  the  reins  of  power.  Every  candid  Demo- 
crat and  every  candid  Republican  will  concede  this.  The  party  that  would 
weed  out  abuses  to-day  will  bring  forth  a  plentiful  progeny  of  corruption 
in  a  decade.  The  cry,  "turn  the  rascals  out, "  proceeding  alternately  from 
the  camps  of  Israel  and  Judah,  and  followed  by  the  mere  transfer  of  spoils, 
is  very  edifying,  but  it  gives  no  hope  of  permanent  improvement.     We 


APPENDIX  I  263 

want  something  that  will  apply  the  remedy  at  the  very  approach  of  the 
disease,  something  that  works,  not  transiently  and  spasmodically,  but 
by  a  constant,  natural  law.  We  do  not  want  a  nostrum  or  opiate  which 
gives  mere  temporary  relief  from  pain  and  leaves  the  source  of  the  malady 
untouched  to  attack  us  with  greater  violence  on  the  morrow.  What  we 
need  is  a  '*vis  medicatrix  natures";  something  in  the  political  system  which 
will  restore  and  retain  health  without  external  aid;  something  which  shall 
be  present  wherever  the  forces  of  decay  appear  to  correct  them  by  its  own 
inherent  power.  The  remedy  should  be  as  permanent  as  the  evil.  It  should 
be  addressed  to  the  known  weaknesses  of  human  nature,  recognizing  that 
these  may  appear  in  Democrat  and  Republican  alike. 

We  must  remember  that  no  party  ever  existed,  no,  nor  any  form  of 
government,  into  which  corrupt  and  selfish  motives  have  not  somewhere 
entered.  The  question  is,  what  will  contract  within  the  closest  space  the 
sphere  of  their  activities.  Our  experience  in  constitutional  restrictions 
shows  that  the  evils  of  government  are  always  least  where  its  powers  are 
limited  by  certain  fixed  laws ;  that  it  is  wiser  to  trust  our  rights  to  general 
preestablished  rules  than  to  leave  them  to  be  determined  by  the  irre- 
sponsible will  of  another.  Accordingly  in  general  matters  of  law  we  leave 
as  little  discretion  as  possible  to  our  judges,  our  governors,  and  our  political 
ofiicials.  We  consider  that  fixed  rules,  however  imperfect,  are  better  than 
arbitrary  power.  Even  our  own  hands  as  legislators  are  tied  by  many 
stringent  provisions  of  our  State  and  national  constitutions.  We  cannot 
impair  the  obligations  of  contract,  nor  pass  ex  post  facto  laws.  We  cannot 
establish  a  religion,  nor  create  an  order  of  nobility.  Why  is  this?  Because 
it  is  deemed  safer  to  trust  a  general  rule  in  these  matters  than  to  leave  them 
to  be  determined  by  our  arbitrary  will.  The  great  feature  of  all  Republican 
institutions  is  jealousy  of  arbitrary  power.  We  have  eliminated  it  from 
many  parts  of  our  system.  What  the  civil  service  reformer  asks  is  that  still 
other  limitations  should  be  prescribed.  Why  is  it  that  an  appointing  officer 
should  be  permitted  to  act  any  more  arbitrarily  in  his  appointments  than 
in  respect  of  any  other  official  act?  Public  office  is  a  public  trust  and  he 
has  no  more  right  to  bestow  it  for  his  personal  gratification  or  for  the  success 
of  his  party  than  the  judge  has  to  take  away  your  property  or  mine  upon 
personal  or  party  groimds.  If  you  ask  then  why  I  want  appointments 
controlled  by  rules  and  examinations;  why  I  am  not  willing  to  trust  the 
discretion  of  the  executive  or  even  of  the  Legislature,  I  answer:  "For  the 
same  reason  that  you  insist  that  the  judge  that  passes  upon  your  life, 
liberty,  and  property  shall  be  governed  by  fixed  rules  of  law;  for  the  same 
reason  that  you  are  unwilling  to  trust  his  arbitrary  discretion  to  do  what  to 
him  seems  right." 

We  say  that  to  regulate  appointments  for  office  by  certain  fixed  rules,  is 
better  than  to  leave  such  appointments  to  the  arbitrary  discretion  of  an 
individual  or  party,  to  just  the  same  extent  that  the  reign  of  law  in  civil 
government  is  better  than  arbitrary  discretion.    There  are  many  defects 


264  APPENDIX  I 

'n  every  system  of  fixed  laws.  Such  S5rstems  have  their  imperfections  in  the 
impossibility  of  adapting  perfectly  any  general  rule  to  the  requirements  of 
every  individual  case.  But  the  blood  marks  of  tyranny  which  have  defaced 
every  page  of  the  world's  history  show  that  the  imperfections  of  human 
nature  are  such  that  it  is  better  to  trust  almost  any  system  of  uniform  law 
than  the  caprice  of  an  individual  or  collection  of  individuals ;  that  absolute 
sovereigns  rule  for  their  own  aggrandizement  and  consider  the  sufferings 
of  their  subjects  as  trivial  when  weighed  in  the  balance  against  their  own 
pride  and  interest.  This  is  no  less  true  of  a  party  than  it  is  of  a  man; 
wherever  the  appointing  power  is  lodged,  if  it  be  discretionary,  it  will  in 
like  manner  be  used  for  the  selfish  purposes  of  the  possessor  of  that  power. 
The  further  civilization  advances  the  less  it  leaves  to  be  determined  by  the 
caprice  of  its  rulers.  Absolutism  is  an  evidence  of  a  low  grade  of  society; 
and  the  arbitrary  right  of  appointment  to  office  in  a  man  or  a  party  is  a 
rudimentary  form  of  absolutism  still  left  in  a  civilization  which  has,  in  the 
main,  outgrown  it. 

If  now  it  be  conceded  that  a  system  of  rules  is  better  than  individual 
discretion,  the  next  question  is:  What  sort  of  rules  must  they  be?  We 
take  it  that  it  is  self-evident  that  the  right  of  appointment  to  office  is  a 
trust;  that  the  duty  is  to  appoint  the  man  best  qualified  for  the  office — the 
one  who  will  best  serve  the  people  in  his  official  capacity.  The  notion  that 
any  man  or  party  has  a  right  to  an  office  is  erroneous.  The  right  is  in  the 
whole  people  to  have  the  best  servants;  the  right  is  in  the  taxpayer  to  have 
the  best  work  performed  for  the  money  which  he  is  required  to  pay  for  it. 
Taxpayers  belong  to  all  parties.  You  have  no  right  to  tax  a  Republican 
to  pay  for  services  performed  for  the  Democratic  party.  All  pay  taxes 
alike,  and  the  work  for  which  they  pay  should  be  work  from  which  they  are 
all  to  receive  a  benefit,  that  is  it  should  be  public  and  not  partisan  service. 
It  is  just  as  much  a  crime  in  principle  to  appoint  to  office  one  unfit  to  per- 
form its  duties,  on  account  of  personal  or  party  services,  as  to  devote  the 
public  money  to  personal  or  campaign  uses.  If  there  be  any  claim  to  office 
by  any  person  it  is  the  claim  of  the  fittest  person  to  hold  it  solely  on  accoimt 
of  his  fitness. 

If  these  conclusions  are  correct,  the  only  remaining  question  is:  "By 
what  system  of  general  rules  can  the  fitness  of  men  for  office  be  best  deter- 
mined? "  It  will  be  hard  to  think  of  any  system  worse  than  the  present  one. 
Capacity  for  party  intrigue  (for  which  offices  are  now  made  rewards)  ought 
to  be  rather  a  disqualification  than  a  reason  for  appointment*  Prejudice 
and  dishonesty  are  very  frequent  companions  of  partisan  zeal  and  abiHty. 
If  we  selected  our  officials  by  lot,  and  limited  their  terms  of  office  to  two 
months,  as  they  used  to  do  in  the  Republic  of  Florence,  we  should  scarcely 
fare  worse  than  we  do  now.  We  have  not  even  the  guarantee  of  the  official 
responsibility  of  the  appointing  officer,  for  appointments  are  most  com- 
monly made  upon  the  influence  of  some  political  friend,  which  the  superior 
is  powerless  to  resist.    He  does  not  even  dare  remove  the  subordinate  after 


/• 


.^ 


APPENDIX  I  265 

his  unworthiness  is  known,  lest  it  may  give  offense.  Now  no  man  should 
fill  any  office  imless  he  knows  enough  to  perform  its  duties.  This  knowl- 
edge can  be  found  out  in  two  ways,  first  by  examining  him,  and  secondly 
by  trying  him.  A  man  ought  not  to  be  a  reading  clerk  who  cannot  read 
distinctly,  nor  an  engrossing  clerk  if  he  cannot  write  a  good  hand,  and  spell 
properly.  Yet  I  have  known  reading  clerks  who  could  not  read  and  en- 
grossing clerks  who  could  not  write.  An  hour's  examination  would  easily 
have  exposed  these  shortcomings.  In  all  matters  then,  where  there  are 
any  duties  to  be  performed  in  which  the  candidate's  fitness  can  be  ascer- 
tained by  an  examination,  there  ought  to  be  such  examination.  But  this  is 
not  enough;  we  ought  to  seek  not  only  to  obtain  a  fit  man  but  the  very 
fittest.  You  cannot  tell  who  the  fittest  will  be  until  you  compare  one  man 
with  another.  Examinations  should  therefore  be  competitive.  Now  the 
larger  the  competition  the  better  will  be  the  ability  secured.  To  find  out 
who  is  the  very  best,  you  must  give  all  a  chance.  This  is  nothing  but  simple 
justice.  Every  citizen  ought  to  have  the  right  to  prove  himself  the  worth- 
est  if  he  can.  This  is  true  democratic  equality.  It  recognizes  the  broad 
principle  that  all  men  are  created  equal;  that  they  have  an  equal  right 
to  seek  any  office  in  the  gift  of  the  government;  that  neither  wealth, 
nor  birth,  nor  influence,  nor  political  opinion  can  shut  the  door  on  them  and 
say:  "You  cannot  enter." 

Civil  service  reform  is  the  cause  of  the  people  against  the  politicians. 
Let  the  test  be  public,  like  our  trials ;  let  the  decision  of  the  examiners  be 
open  to  the  criticism  of  all;  let  the  examination  papers  be  made  a  matter 
of  public  record;  let  the  character  of  the  respective  appUcants  be  subject  to 
the  scrutiny  of  their  competitors,  and  we  may  rest  assured  that  the  results 
of  such  examination  will  be,  in  the  main,  just.  But  the  duty  of  the  ex- 
siminers  must  not  be  discretionary.  It  must  be  confined  to  making  up 
results  from  the  fixed  data  furnished  by  the  examination  papers,  which 
should  always  be  open  to  inspection. 

But  it  is  not  enough  that  the  applicant  should  be  examined.  He  must 
also  be  tried.  If  he  be  found  unworthy,  let  him  stand  aside  and  give  the 
place  to  the  next  upon  the  list.  A  period  of  probation  should  be  imposed, 
and  no  officer  should  receive  a  permanent  appointment  until  his  superior 
certifies  to  his  proper  conduct  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties.  There  should 
also  be  proof  of  moral  character,  and  limitations  as  to  age  and  health. 
When  these  safeguards  are  thrown  around  the  service,  and  promotions 
are  made  to  depend  solely  upon  the  faithful  performance  of  duty,  as  shown 
by  a  record  equally  public,  we  have,  I  think,  as  good  a  system  as  can  be 
devised.  We  apply  to  government  the  great  law  which  nature  applies  in 
every  gradation  of  organic  life — the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Of  course  there 
are  positions  in  the  civil  service  to  which  such  rules  should  not  apply^ 
All  elective  offices  must  remain  as  they  are  now  and  the  leaders  who  direct 
the  policy  of  the  administration  should  belong  to  the  party  in  power. 
The  direct  result  of  the  competitive  system  would  thus  be  the  appoint- 


\ 


-N, 


266  APPENDIX  I 

ment  of  a  much  better  class  of  public  servants,  but  its  indirect  results 
would  be  still  more  important.  It  would  give  a  new  impulse  to  a  thorough 
education  in  all  the  elementary  branches  required  for  the  public  service, 
and  indirectly  to  education  of  every  description. 

But  the  most  important  gain  would  be  the  removal  of  one  of  the  main 
causes  of  the  political  corruption  which  now  infects  our  institutions.  The 
offices  at  the  disposal  of  party  managers  constitute  a  great  mass  of  political 
capital  wherewith  to  bribe  men  to  perform  the  baser  and  more  dishonor- 
able party  servictes.  It  is  the  glittering  prize  of  some  office  held  before  the 
eyes  of  the  ward  politician  which  animates  him  in  his  political  bartering. 
To  put  these  offices  beyond  the  power  of  patronage,  to  render  them  no 
longer  attainable  by  such  means  is  to  wipe  out  much  of  the  trickery  which 
pervades  our  political  organizations.  The  purer  part  of  politics  will 
remain;  those  who  work  for  principle  and  not  for  pelf  will  work  as  hard 
as  ever.  Legitimate  party  government  will  not  be  affected.  The 
higher  officers  will  continue  to  carry  out  the  policy  of  their  respective 
parties. 

Arbitrary  power  corrupts  its  possessor.  This  is  just  as  true  of  a  party 
as  of  a  man.  The  removal  of  patronage  will  make  both  parties  purer  and 
cleaner.  The  demoralizing  solicitations  which  consume  the  time  of  legisla- 
tive and  executive  officers  will  cease,  and  they  can  devote  their  undivided 
energy  to  matters  of  public  policy  and  statesmanship.  Public  economy  will 
be  promoted;  legislators  will  no  longer  vote  exorbitant  salaries  to  favor  their 
appointees.  Removals  without  cause  will  be  stopped  when  vacancies  must 
be  filled  by  competition.  The  officials,  no  longer  subject  to  political  assess- 
ments, nor  liable  to  be  arbitrarily  removed,  will  work  for  lower  salaries. 
They  will  no  longer  neglect  their  official  duties  for  politics,  since  they  will 
no  longer  owe  their  office  to  political  work.  Hence  the  same  number  of 
persons  can  do  more  and  better  work.  The  officers  will  retain  their  man- 
hood and  independence  and  will  not  be  required  to  vote  for  a  person  or 
measure  which  they  do  not  approve  for  fear  of  losing  their  places.  The 
charge  that  our  best  men  keep  aloof  from  office  because  politics  is  demoraliz- 
ing will  no  longer  be  true.  To  hold  office  in  the  civil  service  will  be  credit- 
able, because  it  will  show  that  the  possessor  has  ability  and  knowledge. 
Executive  appointments  will  no  longer  be  influenced  by  the  Legislature, 
because  they  will  be  beyond  the  power  of  the  Legislature.  Politics  will 
become  less  a  trade.  Party  intrigue  will  fall  more  into  disrepute,  while  the 
general  suspicion  of  corrupt  motives  which  clings  to  almost  every  legisla- 
tive act  will  in  great  measure  pass  away.  The  bane  of  modern  political 
life  is  an  accursed  hunger  for  office.  It  is  the  common  saying  "  Young  men 
should  not  go  into  politics  because  it  ruins  them  for  everything  else." 
The  excitement,  the  intrigue,  the  passion  and  ambition  attendant  upon 
political  life  seem  to  disqualify  most  men  for  the  duties  of  business.  The 
temporary  character  of  appointments  and  the  arbitrary  removals  by  whieh 
sooner  or  later  nearly  all  are  thrown  back  into  private  life  are  the  source 


.^ 


^\ 


APPENDIX  I  267 

of  bitter  disappointment.  Politics  wrecks  the  lives  of  nearly  all  who  engage 
in  it.    In  its  mad  vortex  those  who  enter  perish. 

Such  being  its  tendency,  its  baleful  influence  should  be  confined  within 
the  closest  possible  limits. 

The  wisdom  of  civil  service  reform  is  demonstrated,  not  merely  by  reason 
but  by  experience  and  historic  fact.  It  is  no  longer  an  experiment.  It  has 
been  tried,  and  is  successful.  Its  success  has  been  tested,  not  during  a 
month  nor  a  year,  but  during  a  long  series  of  years;  in  England,  in  India,  in 
Australia,  in  Canada,  and  last  of  all,  in  our  own  Federal  Government,  and 
in  the  Empire  State.  It  has  been  tried  longest  and  proved  most  thoroughly 
in  England  and  her  dependencies.  Her  history  in  this  respect,  as  in  others 
which  have  affected  our  dearest  political  rights,  is  pregnant  with  instruction. 

Civil  service  reform  is  past  its  embryonic  condition.  It  is  only  a  ques- 
tion of  time  until  it  is  introduced  into  every  State  and  Territory.  The 
country  is  now  ripe  for  this  reform.  The  thinking  people  of  the  nation 
demand  it. 

I  can  see  other  great  measures  looming  up  in  the  more  distant  future — 
great  problems  in  regard  to  the  disposition  of  wealth — the  land  question — 
the  labor  question.  For  some  of  these  the  world  is  not  yet  ready.  They 
must  be  wrought  out  in  public  thought  before  they  can  receive  definite 
form  in  legislation,  but  this  matter  has  already  been  developed  in  a  prac- 
tical shape.  It  is  not  a  question  of  the  future,  but  of  the  present.  I  do  not 
know  what  may  be  the  fate  of  the  present  bill  in  this  General  Assembly,  bu- 
I  know  that  a  similar  measure  will,  at  some  time,  be  passed  by  the  Legislat 
ture  of  this  State,  as  surely  as  there  is  a  law  of  development  and  growth  in 
human  society.  ^ 


\ 


^>V 


APPENDIX  II 

WHAT  HAVE  CIVIL    SERVICE    REFORMERS  A   RIGHT  TO  EXPECT 
FROM   THE    REPUBLICAN    PARTY  ?^  / 

What  have  we  a  right  to  expect  from  the  Republican  party?  At  a  recent 
meeting  of  our  Indiana  Association  we  had  occasion  to  examine  somewhat 
in  detail  the  precise  meaning  of  the  declarations  of  that  party  in  regard  to 
civil  service  reform.  I  desire  at  the  outset  to  recapitulate  in  a  few  brief 
words  the  conclusions  to  which  we  were  led.  That  party  acquired  power 
upon  certain  definite  promises  embodied  in  the  national  platform.  This 
is  the  language:  "The  men  who  abandoned  the  Republican  party  in  1884 
and  continued  to  adhere  to  the  Democratic  party  have  deserted  not  only 
the  cause  of  honest  government,  of  sound  finance,  of  freedom,  of  purity  of 
the  ballot,  but  especially  have  they  deserted  the  cause  of  reform  in  the  civil 
service.  We  will  not  fail  to  keep  our  pledges  because  they  have  broken  theirs, 
or  because  their  candidate  has  broken  his." 

The  platform  is  made,  not  simply  a  declaration  of  policy,  but  a  definite 
"pledge"  (that  is  the  word),  which  it  would  be  impossible  for  an  adminis- 
tration, acquiring  power  upon  the  strength  of  it,  not  to  regard. 

The  platform  goes  on:  "We  therefore  repeat  our  declaration  of  1884,  to 
wit:  The  reform  of  the  civil  service,  auspiciously  begun  under  a  Republican 
administration,  should  be  completed  by  the  further  extension  of  the  reform 
system,  already  established  by  law,  to  all  the  grades  of  the  service  to  which 
it  is  applicable.  The  spirit  and  purpose  of  reform  should  be  observed  in  all 
executive  appointments,  and  all  laws  at  variance  with  the  object  of  exist- 
ing reform  legislation  should  be  repealed,  to  the  end  that  the  dangers  to 
free  institutions,  which  lurk  in  the  power  of  official  patronage,  may  be 
wisely  and  effectively  avoided." 

General  Harrison  tells  us  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  that  in  regard  to 
every  subject  embraced  in  the  platform,  he  is  in  entire  agreement  with  the 
declarations  of  the  convention.  He  is  therefore  in  agreement  with  this 
pledge,  and  has  made  it  his  own  promise. 

Now,  what  is  the  meaning  of  these  words?  They  are  capable  of  pretty 
definite  construction. 

^  Address  delivered  at  the  Conference  of  Civil  Service  Reformers,  at 
Baltimore,  February  23,  1889. 

a68 


^'A 


APPENDIX  II  269 

"  The  reform  should  be  extended  to  all  grades  of  the  service  to  which  it  is 
applicable."  By  whom  must  the  extension  be  made?  Undoubtedly  by 
that  branch  of  the  government  which  is  now  invested  with  cx>ntrol  over 
executive  appointments. 

It  is  the  President,  and  not  Congress,  to  whom  we  must  look  for  the 
redemption  of  this  pledge.  The  promise  cannot  be  fulfilled  by  a  mere 
approval  of  reform  legislation.  The  affirmative  act  of  extending  the  system 
must  be  done  by  the  President,  in  whose  hands  the  power  resides.  Con- 
gress has  already  enacted  legislation  which  amply  authorizes  the  Executive 
to  make  the  extensions  promised.  Section  1753  of  the  Revised  Statutes 
declares:  "The  President  is  authorized  to  prescribe  such  regulations  for  the 
admission  of  persons  into  the  civil  service  of  the  United  States  as  may  best 
promote  the  efficiency  thereof,  and  ascertain  the  fitness  of  each  candidate ; 
.  .  .  and  for  this  purpose  he  may  employ  suitable  persons  to  conduct 
inquiries,  and  may  prescribe  their  duties.  ..." 

The  power  is  plenary.  Should  Congress  be  asked  to  pass  new  laws 
extending  the  system,  the  answer  would  be  made  that  the  power  to  do  this 
is  already  possessed  by  the  Executive. 

The  President  has  the  right  to  extend  the  rules  and  General  Harrison  has 
given  his  promise  that  they  shall  be  extended  to  all  grades  to  which  they 
are  appUcable. 

The  next  question  is:  To  what  grades  of  the  service  is  the  reform  system 
applicable?  This  also,  as  to  many  of  these  places,  is  capable  of  definite 
ascertainment.  The  Civil  Service  Act  itself  enumerates  grades  to  which  it 
is  applicable,  and  to  which  it  has  not  yet  been  extended.  The  sixth  section 
makes  it  the  duty  of  the  Postmaster-General  to  classify  the  public  service 
at  each  post  office  where  there  are  fifty  persons  employed.  "  And  thereafter 
on  the  direction  of  the  President  to  arrange  in  like  classes  the  persons 
employed  in  connection  with  any  other  post  office." 

Under  this  section  there  have  been  brought  into  the  classified  service 
some  thirty-seven  post  offices.  The  statute  recognizes  others  to  which  it 
should  be  extended.  There  is  no  reason  why  it  cannot  be  extended  to  all 
offices  where  there  is  a  free  delivery  of  letters.  There  is  as  much  reason  for 
its  application  there  as  to  the  larger  places.  The  duties  are  substantially 
the  same;  the  positions  are  non-political.  There  is  no  court  in  Christendom 
that  in  construing  the  promise  would  deny  that  the  system  was  applicable 
to  such  places.  By  the  terms  of  the  Act,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  President  to 
direct  this  extension.  Such  extension  he  has,  therefore,  definitely  agreed 
to  make. 

Similar  provisions  are  contained  in  the  Act  regarding  the  employees  of 
collectors,  naval  officers,  surveyors,  and  appraisers  in  the  customs  service 
and  the  platform  applies  to  all  these  places  where  the  rules  are  not  yet 
extended. 

The  promise  to  extend  the  reform  to  all  places  to  which  it  is  applicable, 
certainly  includes  those  grades  to  which  civil  service  regulations  have  been 


270  APPENDIX  II 

successfully  applied  elsewhere.  In  such  cases  experience  has  shown  that 
the  system  is  applicable.  The  platform  was  made  with  reference  to  this 
fact.  The  men  who  drafted  the  platform,  and  the  convention  which 
adopted  it,  knew  that  similar  provisions  had  been  successfully  applied  to 
grades  of  the  service  in  Massachusetts,  New  York,  and  elsewhere,  to  which 
they  had  not  yet  been  extended  by  the  Federal  Act,  and  in  promising  that 
the  reform  should  be  extended  to  all  grades  to  which  it  is  applicable,  they 
certainly  included  these.  Let  me  offer  an  illustration: — The  experience  of 
Massachusetts  has  shown  that  it  is  desirable  that  the  labor  service  should 
be  placed  imder  the  rules.  By  this  means  the  country  will  avoid  the  un- 
wholesome spectacle  of  vast  numbers  of  men  employed  in  navy  yards  and 
elsewhere,  just  before  election,  in  order  to  secure  votes  and  political  support. 

By  the  Federal  Act,  laborers  need  not  be  classified,  but  there  is  nothing 
which  forbids  such  classification.  The  President  has  the  power  to  make  it. 
It  ought  to  be  made,  and  the  platform  has  substantially  promised  that  it 
shall  be. 

The  Civil  Service  Commissioners,  without  regard  to  party,  have  brought 
to  the  attention  of  the  President  other  branches  of  the  service  to  which  the 
rules  may  be  applied.  Among  these  were  the  employees  of  the  railway  mail 
service,  and  many  places  in  the  Indian  Bureau,  in  the  Labor  Bureau,  in 
the  War  Department,  arid  in  the  Department  of  Agriculture.  Some  of  these 
recommendations  have  been  adopted  and  the  outgoing  administration  has 
done  no  act  more  important  than  the  inclusion  of  the  railway  mail  service 
within  the  rules.  We  believe  that  we  have  not  only  the  promise  of  the 
President-elect  that  the  extensions  made  shall  be  maintained,  but  also  that 
the  law  shall  be  applied  to  those  places  to  which  it  is  not  yet  extended,  but 
where  the  imbiased  judgment  of  those  best  qualified  to  determine  shall 
declare  that  it  is  appHcable. 

These  are  some  of  the  places  to  which  it  can  be  definitely  affirmed  that 
the  Republican  party  has  promised  an  extension  of  the  reform.  In  respect 
to  a  much  wider  range  of  non-political  offices  such  as  consulships  and 
fourth-class  postmasterships  where  the  ground  is  more  debatable,  as  to. 
these,  we  may  hopefully  await  the  ripening  influences  of  time  and  a  more 
progressive  public  sentiment. 

But  the  promise  does  not  stop  at  the  extension  of  the  rules.  "The  spirit 
and  purpose  of  reform  should  be  observed  in  all  executive  appointments." 

That  "spirit  and  purpose"  is,  that  in  non-political  offices,  men  are  not  to 
be  appointed,  rejected,  or  discharged  on  account  of  political  services  or 
opinions,  but  on  accoimt  of  their  fitness  to  perform  the  duties  of  office, 
and  that  they  are  not  to  use  their  official  places  for  political  purposes. 

The  President-elect,  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  shows  that  this  is  his 
understanding.  He  sa ys,  * '  In  appointments  to  every  grade  and  department, 
fitness  and  not  party  service  should  be  the  essential  and  discriminating 
test,  and  fidelity  and  efficiency  the  only  sure  tenure  of  office." 

We  believe  therefore  that  the  spectacle  will  not  be  repeated  of  the  ap- 


APPENDIX  II  271 

pointment  of  new  and  untried  men  to  positions  for  which  they  have  shown 
no  qualifications,  on  account  of  the  aid  given  by  them  to  the  party  or  its 
candidate  during  the  campaign.  It  will  be  impossible,  for  instance,  that 
such  a  position  as  a  consulship,  a  place  requiring  business  ability,  and  a 
knowledge  of  the  language  and  usages  of  the  country  where  the  duties  are 
to  be  performed,  shall  be  filled  by  a  man  without  business  qualifications, 
ignorant  of  both  language  and  usages,  because  such  person  has  been  an 
effective  campaign  speaker,  or  useful  in  the  organization  of  the  party  in 
power.    Fitness  is  to  be  the  essential  and  discriminating  test. 

But,  more  than  this,  the  President-elect  says:  "Only  the  interest  of  the 
public  service  should  suggest  removals  from  office."  This  means  a  great 
deal.  It  means  that  the  clamor  of  aspirants  and  local  political  sentiment 
shall  not  accomplish  the  removal  of  that  Democratic  official  who  has 
faithfully  performed  his  duty. 

The  platform  then  promises  two  things:  First,  an  extension  of  the  rules; 
and,  secondly,  the  application  of  reform  principles  to  places  outside  the 
rules.  While  the  latter  is  wider  in  its  scope,  and  harder  to  carry  out,  I  am 
incHned  to  think  the  extension  of  the  classified  service  is  the  more  important 
of  the  two.  If  improvement  in  the  personnel  of  the  service  is  to  depend 
upon  the  whim  of  those  in  power,  the  benefit  is  likely  to  be  fleeting.  Let 
the  President-elect  be  ever  so  firm  in  withstanding  party  pressure,  yet  the 
good  which  flows  from  this  may  come  to  an  end  when  the  administration 
goes  out ;  or,  at  least,  with  the  downfall  of  the  party  in  power.  Let  a  reform 
President  be  followed  by  a  spoilsman,  and  all  that  has  been  won  will  be 
lost.  But  if  the  rules  are  extended,  the  gain  is  more  likely  to  be  lasting. 
The  widening  of  the  classified  service  is  a  recognition  of  the  great  principle 
that  law  is  to  be  substituted  for  personal  pleasure,  and  this  is  the  main 
point.  In  the  history  of  absolute  governments,  rulers,  good  and  bad, 
follow  each  other  like  shade  and  simshine,  across  the  field.  But  when  law 
is  put  in  the  place  of  arbitrary  power,  something  has  been  gained  for  all 
time.  The  step  backward  is  seldom  taken.  Free  institutions  spread  and 
the  reign  of  law  becomes  lasting  from  the  continued  proofs  of  its  beneficent 
character.  So  is  it  in  our  reform.  For  myself,  I  attach  the  greatest  impor- 
tance to  the  modest  but  permanent  gain  of  the  extension  of  the  classified 
service.  The  history  of  the  growth  of  reform  in  England  shows  us  that  the 
betterment  of  the  service  outside  the  rules  will  not  by  any  means  keep 
pace  with  the  extension  of  the  classified  system.  After  the  reform  had  been 
introduced  into  most  of  the  departments  of  government,  the  few  offices 
where  the  patronage  system  remained  were  worse  than  ever,  imtil  the 
wretched  service  in  these  places  had  its  good  effect  in  a  demand  for  the 
further  extension  of  the  classification  and  the  utter  overthrow  of  the  old 
system  became  inevitable. 

So  will  it  be  with  us.  Where  the  two  systems  stand  side  by  side  for 
comparison,  the  fittest  will  survive.  Let  us  then  bend  our  energies  mainly 
to  this  point.    Let  us  rather  forgive  unworthy  appointments  disconnected 


272  APPENDIX  II 

with  the  classified  service  than  overlook  an  evasion  of  the  law.  Let  us 
insist  that  within  the  stronghold  of  the  Civil  Service  Act,  none  shall  enter 
by  whose  hand  it  can  be  delivered  to  the  enemy.  Let  no  man  be  permitted 
to  carry  out  this  law  who  is  not  in  sympathy  with  its  purposes. 

General  Harrison  says:  "The  law  shoiild  have  the  aid  of  a  friendly 
interpretation,  and  be  faithfiilly  and  vigorously  enforced."  This  cannot 
be  done,  if  men  who  are  not  in  favor  of  it,  men  who,  like  Postmaster  Aquilla 
Jones,  say  that  they  despise  it — ^if  such  as  these  are  appointed  to  carry  it 
out.  If  spoilsmen  are  to  be  chosen  for  the  service  of  the  government,  we 
must  insist,  as  a  vital  matter,  that  they  be  excluded  from  places  which 
involve  the  selection  of  employees  under  the  Civil  Service  Act.  General 
Harrison  says:  "All  appointments  imder  this  law  should  be  absolutely  free 
from  partisan  considerations, "  but  this  can  never  be  if  those  clothed  with 
the  power  of  making  such  appointments  are  themselves  warped  by  the 
prejudices  of  the  spoils  system. 

But  the  promise  of  the  Republican  platform  does  not  stop  with  the 
executive  branch  of  government.  "All  laws  at  variance  with  the  object 
of  existing  reform  legislation  should  be  repealed."  What  does  this  mean? 
The  object  of  reform  legislation  is  to  make  the  tenure  of  these  offices 
dependent  upon  fitness  and  the  faithful  performance  of  duty.  The  law 
which  provides  that  it  shall  depend  upon  any  other  fact  is  at  variance  with 
this.  The  act  which  makes  places  subject  to  change  every  four  years, 
notwithstanding  the  fitness  of  the  incumbent,  gives  a  pretext  for  the 
removal  of  good  men  upon  the  ground  that  their  term  has  expired,  and 
thus  encourages  the  appointment  of  those  who  are  inexperienced  and  often 
incompetent. 

The  promise  of  the  platform,  if  it  refers  to  anything,  refers  to  this  law. 
Since  both  Houses  of  Congress  are  to  be  controlled  by  the  same  party  as 
the  executive  branch  of  the  government,  we  have  a  right  to  expect  in 
fulfillment  of  this  promise  that  this  Act  shall  be  repealed. 

So  far  as  future  conduct  can  be  foretold  by  past  life  and  character,  we 
have  in  the  uprightness  and  honesty  everywhere  conceded  to  General 
Harrison,  the  strongest  ground  for  belief  that  when  once  his  word  is  out,  the 
last  jot  and  tittle  will  be  fulfilled.  When  he  tells  us  that  fitness  will  be  the 
test  and  that  he  will  advance  the  reform,  we  may  feel  sure  that  worthy 
men  will  fill  the  offices  and  that  the  reform  will  move  ahead.  The  highest 
motives  urge  him  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  promise.  The  plainest 
dictates  of  honor  and  good  faith  imperiously  demand  it.  Duty  to  the  state 
requires  it  in  behalf  of  good  government,  and  duty  to  himself  requires  it 
because  his  word  is  given. 

With  Mr.  Cleveland,  the  comparison  between  promise  and  performance 
was  most  effectively  made.  Every  shortcoming  was  noted;  every  gap 
between  word  and  deed  was  laid  bare  in  the  plainest  language  possible. 
Every  case  where  Mr.  Cleveland  failed  to  come  up  to  his  own  standards  of 
duty  was  thrown  into  the  balance  against  him  in  a  closely  contested  elec- 


APPENDIX  II  273 

tion.  And  I  think  we  may  say  that  the  weight  of  these  shortcomings  was 
enough  to  turn  the  scale. 

A  President  may  be  a  spoilsman,  believing  it  to  be  right,  and  still  retain 
the  respect  of  the  world,  but  a  President  who  is  in  any  degree  a  spoilsman 
after  his  own  words  have  declared  that  the  spoils  system  is  wrong  must 
forfeit  in  some  degree  the  confidence  of  the  people.  Such  would  be  the 
fate  of  the  incoming  administration,  so  far  as  it  would  repeat  the  short- 
comings of  the  one  which  is  now  taking  its  leave.  The  pressure  of  ofl&ce 
seekers  will  be  enormous;  it  will  be  constant  and  inexorable,  but  that  very 
pressure  furnishes  the  strongest  inducement  for  the  widest  possible  exten- 
sion of  the  classified  service.  The  pressure  can  be  relieved  only  by  the 
substitution  of  an  automatic  system  for  that  arbitrary  discretion  which 
every  ofiSce  seeker  will  insist  ought  to  be  exercised  in  his  own  favor.  The 
great  engine  of  the  civil  service  is  becoming  too  large  and  complicated  for 
all  its  movements  to  be  controlled  by  the  personal  will  of  the  engineer. 
The  governor  and  the  safety-valve  must  be  self -regulating.  The  authority 
of  the  President  must  be  reserved  for  more  important  things  than  the 
distribution  of  subordinate  places. 

The  new  administration  is  beckoned  toward  reform  not  only  by  the 
command  of  duty,  but  even  by  the  finger  of  ambition.  So  far  as  mere 
oj0&ce  is  concerned,  the  President  has  reached  the  summit  of  all  hope. 
There  is  no  prize  glittering  before  him  fairer  in  promise  than  that  which 
he  already  holds.  Yet  office,  whether  high  or  low,  is  little  more  than 
opportunity.  Even  the  Presidency  is  only  that  greater  and  higher 
shaft  upon  the  marble  of  which  are  yet  to  be  inscribed  those  acts  which  shall 
pass  into  history.  A  President  with  a  just  conception  of  his  opportimity 
will  work,  not  for  ease  or  present  popularity,  not  for  the  perpetuation  of 
power  for  four  years  more — his  effort  will  be  directed  to  the  doing  of  that 
which  shall  last  for  all  time.  The  monumerUum  are  perennius  is  the  one 
goal  ahead. 

In  what  way  can  the  incoming  administration  best  become  the  benefactor 
of  htimanity?  In  what  way  better  than  by  eliminating  the  great  danger 
which  hangs  over  our  repubhcan  institutions,  that  lust  of  office  which  is 
corruptly  nourished  by  the  spoils  of  office? 

As  the  advocate  of  a  protective  tariff  the  efforts  of  the  new  administra 
tion  will  be  mainly  conservative.  It  has  no  new  fields  to  conquer.  There  is 
little  to  distinguish  it  from  its  predecessors;  it  must  shine  by  reflected  light. 
And  the  credit  or  blame  will  be  mainly  due,  not  to  the  President  but  to 
Congress,  upon  which  the  burden  of  legislation  rests.  But  with  civil  service 
reform  the  problem  is  to  bring  to  a  successful  issue  the  question  in  which 
the  efforts  of  Grant  and  Hayes,  Arthur  and  Cleveland,  have  resulted  in  a 
most  halting  and  imperfect  measure  of  success.  The  man  who  shall  com- 
plete this  reform  and  work  it  into  the  fabric  of  our  government  as  the  jury 
system  is  ingrained  in  our  institutions,  this  man  will  deserve  and  receive 
the  lasting  gratitude  of  posterity.  And  the  credit  will  be  due,  not  to 
18 


274  *  APPENDIX  II 

Congress,  but  to  the  President  alone.  In  his  hand  the  power  resides  to 
extend  this  reform. 

Should  General  Harrison  succeed  in  establishing  civil  service  reform  upon 
a  permanent  basis,  he  will  have  added  a  new  and  lasting  course  in  the 
construction  of  that  fabric  of  liberty,  the  foundations  whereof  our  fathers 
laid  and  our  brothers  cemented  with  their  lives.  It  will  rise — ^for  it  is  still 
far  from  finished — ^more  symmetrically  and  more  solidly  for  this  new 
support.  Other  great  questions,  such  as  those  affecting  the  relations  of 
labor  and  capital,  are  still  to  come.  The  work  upon  them  cannot  be  safely 
done  until  the  lower  covurses  are  securely  laid — civil  service  reform  must 
precede  any  other  reform.  The  laws  of  social  gravitation  demand  it. 
Happy  among  his  contemporaries  and  blessed  for  all  time  will  be  the 
President  whose  hand  is  strong  enough  to  work  the  reform  of  the  civil 
service  solidly  and  permanently  into  the  fabric  of  our  institutions! 

Men  call  us  dreamers  and  impracticable,  as  they  called  the  antislavery 
agitators  of  thirty  years  ago.  But  when  we  build  our  dreams  upon  the 
necessities  of  our  political  life,  the  fulfillment  draws  nigh  even  while  the 
vision  lasts. 

When  Walpole  distributed  his  bribes  and  his  offices,  when  Parliament 
was  rotten  with  a  corruption  which  permeated  and  degraded  every  class 
of  society,  what  a  wild  dream  to  forecast  a  time  when  political  activity 
could  be  nourished  by  healthier  nutriment  than  the  love  of  money  and  the 
spoils  of  office,  when  men  would  struggle  for  principle  and  not  for  place! 
But  lo!  the  cloud  is  scattered  and  the  statecraft  of  our  great  mother- 
commonwealth  is  no  longer  soiled  with  the  debauchery  of  spoils  and  bribes, 
the  remnants  of  which  still  linger  among  her  progeny  of  States  across  the 
sea;  and  while  we  dream  of  the  same  better  time  approaching,  lo,  before 
our  very  eyes,  the  vision  turns  into  a  living  reality. 


APPENDIX  III 

THE  REFORM  OF  THE  CIVIL  SERVICE ' 

The  principles  underlying  civil  service  reform  are  as  clearly  demon- 
strable as  any  in  political  economy.  They  start  from  the  same  axioms  of 
self-interest,  which,  while  not  the  sole  motives  of  himian  action,  are  still 
apt  to  play  a  leading  part.  Just  as  men  will  buy  in  the  cheapest  market 
and  sell  in  the  dearest  (and  from  this  starting-point  so  much  of  poHtical 
economy  takes  its  rise), so  it  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  spoils  system 
that  men,  in  the  distribution  of  offices,  will  pay  the  highest  price  for  support 
of  the  greatest  political  value.  As  commercial  value  is  measured  by  dollars, 
political  value  is  measured  by  votes.  The  rules  of  political  economy  have 
many  exceptions.  In  experience  the  "parallax  and  refraction"  (if  I  may 
so  term  them)  of  the  special  surroimdings  make  the  actual  result  somewhat 
different  in  every  case  from  the  theoretical  result.  Personal  preferences,  as 
well  as  ignorance  of  surroimding  conditions,  make  it  perhaps  untrue  in  ninety- 
nine  cases  out  of  a  hujidred  that  men  actually  buy  in  the  very  cheapest 
market  and  sell  in  the  dearest.  Blft  this  law  is,  nevertheless,  the  law  of  all 
trade.  So  it  is  true  in  the  market  of  politics,  which  the  spoils  system 
represents,  that  the  vote  value  of  every  appointment  is  the  normal  standard 
toward  which  every  appointment  gravitates.  Personal  or  special  con- 
siderations may  control,  just  as  friendship  may  lead  a  man  to  trade  at  a 
neighbor's  store  and  pay  a  litttle  higher  price  for  what  he  buys.  Men  have 
mistaken  notions  of  the  political  value  of  a  claimant  for  office,  just  as  they 
have  mistaken  notions  of  the  commercial  value  of  the  goods  they  buy. 
But  the  laws  of  trade  and  of  spoils  politics  are  essentially  the  same. 

The  more  elaborately  commercial  society  is  developed  and  the  more 
generally  commercial  intelligence  is  diffused,  the  more  closely  is  the  general 
economic  rule  observed  and  the  less  do  personal  considerations  affect  the 
matter  of  barter  and  exchange.  So,  in  politics,  the  larger  and  more  compli- 
cated the  interests,  the  greater  the  nimiber  of  votes,  and  the  greater  the 
certainty  of  the  motives  which  act  upon  these  votes  to  cast  them  one  way 
or  the  other,  just  so  much  more  closely  will  this  political  rule  of  barter  and 
sale  approach  the  actual  and  proved  reality.  In  the  primitive  stages  of 
republican  government  men  consider  more  the  quality  of  the  man  to  be 

« Address  at  the  Social  Science  Congress,  Saratoga,  September  3,  1891. 

275 


276  APPENDIX  III 

appointed  than  in  its  later  and  more  impersonal  stages.  In  earlier  days  we 
acted  upon  the  theory  of  personal  discretion  in  the  selection  of  officeholders. 
The  President  was  supposed  to  have  some  knowledge  of  the  postmasters 
and  collectors  whose  names  were  submitted  to  the  Senate;  and,  when  post- 
masters and  collectors  were  few,  this  theory  was  not  unreasonable.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  steam-engine  the  valve  was  turned  on  by  the  personal 
action  of  the  engineer;  but,  as  the  machinery  became  more  highly  developed 
and  complicated,  automatic  action  was  found  to  be  necessary.  So  has  it 
been  in  our  government.  When  the  number  of  postmasters  increased  to 
forty  thousand,  personal  selection  was  no  longer  possible.  These  things 
must  now  be  done  by  system.  What  shall  the  system  be? 
""^he  development  of  the  spoils  system  in  American  politics  has  been 
attributed  to  Andrew  Jackson,  to  Martin  Van  Biiren,  to  Aaron  Burr.  It 
is  not  due  to  any  man.  If  Andrew  Jackson,  Martin  Van  Buren,  and  Aaron 
Burr  had  never  lived,  it  would  still  have  been  engrafted,  at  some  time  or 
other,  in  some  form  or  other,  into  American  institutions,  in  the  absence  of 
some  other  definite  system  established  by  law.  So  long  as  appointments 
were  left  to  the  personal  discretion  of  an  officer  selected  by  xmiversal  suffrage 
the  spoils  system  was  a  necessary  result.  The  vote  value  of  the  man  could 
not  be  disregarded  when  he  sought  office  from  those  whom  he  had  helped 
to  power.  But,  just  so  surely  as  the  spoils  system  was  the  product  of 
natural  law,  just  so  certain  is  it  to-day  that  its  abolition  is  a  necessity,  born 
from  the  evils  which  it  inflicts. 

No  one  will  deny  that  party  government  is  a  necessary  phase  of  popular 
government.  Party  government  in  the  political  world  exercises  much  the 
same  fimction  that  competition  does  in  the  commercial  world,  that  war 
does  in  the  physical  world,  and  that  the  struggle  for  existence  does  in 
the  organic  world.  It  is  part  of  the  great  development  of  nature  through 
the  survival  of  the  strongest  and  fittest.  Where  all  men  vote,  the  strongest 
must  conquer  at  the  ballot-box  by  essentially  the  same  rules  that  armies 
conquer  in  war.  The  temptation  is  powerful  to  use  all  means,  lawful 
or  unlawful,  according  to  the  Decalogue  and  the  Golden  Rule  or  against 
them,  to  defeat  the  enemy.  In  earlier  times  and  among  the  lower  types  of 
humanity,  the  love  of  booty  was  a  powerful  motive  with  the  man  of  war. 
The  right  to  despoil  his  enemy  was  never  questioned.  But  it  has  gradually 
dawned  upon  the  consciousness  of  the  civilized  world  that  this  right  of 
plunder  not  only  inflicts  unnecessary  hardship  upon  the  conquered  but 
that  it  is  the  greatest  weakness  of  the  conquering  army.  How  many 
have  been  the  battles  lost  where,  after  the  first  onslaught,  the  victorious 
troops,  instead  of  securing  the  fruits  of  their  victory,  devoted  themselves 
to  plunder,  and  have  in  their  turn  been  overcome  and  despoiled?;  The 
military  world  recognizes  that  the  courage  of  the  soldier  must  ^e  sus- 
tained by  some  other  motive  than  the  hope  of  spoil,  and  that  to  allow  an 
army  to  devote  itself  to  plunder  is  to  corrupt  and  ruin  it.  This  is  true  none 
the  less  in  politics  than  in  war.     In  nearly  every  instance  patronage  is  a 


APPENDIX  III  277 

source  of  weakness  rather  than  strength.  The  number  of  the  disappointed 
is  always  greater  than  the  number  of  the  successful.  Even  the  man  who 
receives  the  coveted  plum  is  apt  to  prove  ungrateful.  -The  corrupting 
influence  of  plimder  is  such  that  the  honor  said  to  exist  among  thieves 
cannot  be  trusted.  -,  President  Arthur  had  the  patronage,  yet  he  could  not 
secure  a  renomina^ion.  President  Cleveland  had  the  patronage  yet  it 
contributed  probably  more  than  anything  else  to  his  defeat.  President 
Harrison  has  had  the  patronage,  yet  the  success  of  the  Republican  party 
in  1888  was  converted  in  1890  into  the  most  disastrous  defeat  in  its  history. 

y     The  analogy  between  the  spoils  of  war  and  the  spoils  of  office  goes  far. 

'  In  the  division  of  booty  among  chiefs  and  men,  the  share  of  each  was  deter- 
mined by  the  war  value  of  the  man.  The  chief  was  to  have  one  fifth  or  one 
tenth  of  the  whole,  then  came  the  greater  warriors,  while  the  common  men 
must  content  themselves  with  but  little.  So  in  politics  the  place  to  which 
a  man  is  entitled  depends  upon  his  political  value.  The  man  who  raises 
or  distributes  a  small  campaign  fund  gets  a  small  place,  while  the  man  who 
raises  his  hundreds  of  thousands  may  even  hope  for  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet. 
The  small  speaker  in  the  coimtry  district  may  aspire  to  a  country  post- 
office.  But  the  great  leader  whom  all  flock  to  hear  may  perhaps  become  a 
premier.  The  question  which,  after  all,  determines  the  office  to  be  given 
and  the  man  to  have  it  is,  "  How  many  votes  is  he  worth?" 

Now,  it  is  evident  that  under  such  a  system  as  this  there  is  no  relation  of 
fitness  between  the  man  and  the  duties  he  is  required  to  perform,  unless 
those  duties  are  political.  If  his  duty  is  to  spread  the  principles  of  his 
party  and  win  votes  for  it,  of  course  the  best  politician  will  be  the  best 
man  for  the  place;  but,  if  the  duties  are  purely  administrative  or  financial, 
the  man  whose  excellence  Ues  in  neither  of  these  fields  of  action  will 
very  likely  be  a  bad  man  for  the  place.  In  all  non-political  offices  we  are 
sure,  under  such  a  system,  not  to  get  the  best  service  but  a  poor  service. 
Skill  in  managing  a  caucus  has  no  relation  to  skill  in  adjusting  the  accounts 
of  the  Treasury  Department.  The  man  who  can  best  "whoop  up  the  boys  " 
by  promises  of  patronage  is  not  always  the  best  guardian  of  public  fimds. 
Indeed,  the  particular  kind  of  politician  whose  vote  value  is  the  most  easily 
determined,  and  the  results  of  whose  labors  are  the  most  palpable,  is 
generally  the  one  who  is  disqualified  for  responsible  office.  The  influences 
which  determine  the  conduct  of  the  conscientious,  independent  voter 
are  not  so  immediately  traceable  to  the  particular  action  of  any  one  man  as 
are  the  votes  of  the  venal  "floaters"  to  the  man  who  divides  them  into 
blocks  of  five  or  who  raises  the  money  to  corrupt  them  The  venal  politi- 
cian is,  upon  the  immediate  face  of  things,  a  more  valuable  man  than  the 
more  remote  agent  who  merely  convinces  the  intelligence  of  an  unknown 
nimiber  of  proselytes.  Hence  he  is  apt  to  secure  a  better  place,  unless  the 
fear  of  public  indignation  following  the  discovery  of  his  methods  makes 
his  appointment  impossible.  So  it  often  happens  that  a  few  votes  in  the 
convention  which  makes  the  nomination  are  more  important  than  a  vast 


278  APPENDIX  III 

number  of  votes  at  the  popular  election.  Hence  we  find  that  the  support 
of  delegates  is  especially  sought  for  by  candidates  and  that  great  numbers 
of  those  who  have  thrown  their  influence  for  the  nominee  in  convention 
are  to  be  found  among  the  successful  aspirants  for  office. 

Another  thing  which  results  is  a  political  hierarchy,  or,  as  Mr.  Lucius 
B.  Swift  more  accurately  calls  it,  a  system  of  feudalism  in  officeholding,  in 
which  the  respective  rank  and  power  of  the  man  are  often  quite  different 
from  that  prescribed  by  the  Constitution  and  laws.  According  to  the 
latter,  the  President  and  members  of  the  Cabinet  make  the  appointments; 
the  head  of  a  department  or  bureau  is  generally  authorized  to  appoint  the 
officers  who  serve  imder  him,  and  he  is  responsible  for  their  conduct,  dis- 
missing them  if  they  prove  inefficient.  Yet  in  point  of  fact,  we  find  that 
appointments  are  not  made  in  any  such  way.  A  member  of  Congress  or 
political  boss  of  the  State,  the  district,  or  the  city  is  really  the  appointing 
power.  Sometimes,  like  Senator  Quay,  he  holds  an  office  which  is  purely 
legislative,  involving  no  such  duties  as  the  distribution  of  patronage;  some- 
times, he  holds  no  office  at  all.  These  gentlemen,  the  greater  barons  of 
politics,  divide  their  possessions  among  the  lesser  lords,  the  county  chairmen, 
and  political  bosses ;  and  these  again  apportion  their  allotments  among  the 
leaders  in  townships  and  wards,  who,  in  their  turn,  divide  their  little 
holdings  among  their  own  thralls  and  hustlers.  In  each  case,  service  and 
fealty  are  due,  not  to  the  head  of  the  office,  not  to  the  government  itself, 
but  to  the  particular  source  from  which  the  appointment  comes.  The 
result  is  that  the  men  appointed — inasmuch  as  they  do  not  owe  their  places 
to  any  qualifications  for  the  work  to  be  done,  and  do  not  expect  to  retain 
them  by  virtue  of  their  industry  or  fidelity,  but  on  accotmt  of  their  influence 
with  the  men  who  appointed  them — often  neglect  their  duties  and  devote 
themselves  to  political  work  quite  inconsistent  with  those  duties.  This 
system  has  all  the  vices  and  lawlessness  of  feudalism,  and  those  additional 
weaknesses  which  spring  from  the  unstable  and  uncertain  tenure  upon 
which  these  offices  are  held.  The  man  who  nominally  makes  the  appoint- 
ments— the  head  of  the  office  or  department — does  not  dare  to  make 
removals  for  incompetency,  lest  he  should  offend  the  powerful  "in- 
fluence" which  stands  behind  the  incompetent  man.  The  "influence"  on 
the  other  hand  cares  little  for  the  manner  in  which  his  vassal  performs 
the  duties  of  his  office,  so  long  as  the  personal  or  political  service  to  himself 
is  satisfactory.  There  is  thus  a  divided  responsibility,  the  duties  are 
neglected,  and  there  is  nowhere  any  power  to  apply  the  remedy.  .  .  . 

[Mr.  Foulke  now  proceeded  to  consider  the  appropriateness  of  the  com- 
petitive system  as  a  remedy.  The  theoretical  argimients  in  favor  of  that 
system  were  given  and  finally  its  practical  results  were  set  forth  as  follows. 

The  wisdom  of  civil  service  reform  is  demonstrated  not  merely  by  rea- 
son but  by  actual  experience.  Mr.  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  in  his  report  to  the 
President  concerning  the  civil  service  in  Great  Britain,  has  shown  the 
beneficial  results  of  the  establishment  of  that  system  in  the  mother-country 


APPENDIX  III  279 

in  a  historic  argument  no  longer  to  be  refuted.  In  our  own  republic  the 
evidence  is  equally  satisfactory.  Civil  service  rules  have  been  applied  to 
about  thirty  thousand  offices  in  the  federal  government,  something  less 
than  one  fifth  of  the  whole  in  mere  nimiber,  but  something  considerably 
more  than  this  in  the  salaries  drawn,  and  in  the  importance  and  responsi- 
bility of  the  places.  The  more  widely  extended  the  classified  service,  the 
better  its  results  appear  to  be.  Men  who  have  had  special  opportunities 
for  comparing  the  new  system  with  the  old  in  the  management  of  adminis- 
trative departments  of  the  government  (such  as  Mr.  Windom,  late  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury)  speak  most  emphatically  of  the  improved  service 
and  the  general  beneficial  results  of  the  competitive  system.  It  would  be  a 
sheer  impossibility  to  cast  the  numerous  places  in  the  classified  service  in 
the  various  departments  in  Washington  back  into  the  muddy  pool  of  politi- 
cal patronage.  The  business  of  the  government  could  not  endure  the 
strain. 

The  manner  in  which  the  spoils  system  works,  as  contrasted  with  the 
merit  system,  is  very  clearly  shown  by  the  number  and  character  of  removals 
under  each,  when  a  new  administration  comes  into  power.  I  had  occasion 
to  examine  quite  extensively  the  number  and  character  of  removals  of 
presidential  postmasters  (offices  which  have  not  been  brought  imder  the 
rules)  during  the  first  year  of  the  present  administration. 

The  statement  made  by  Mr.  Clarkson,  First  Assistant  Postmaster- 
General,  showed  that  the  entire  number  of  changes  among  presidential 
postmasters  diuing  this  year  was  more  than  64  per  cent  of  the  whole. 
A  great  number  of  the  so-called  resignations  we  found  to  be  compulsory. 
The  men  removed  were  in  nearly  every  instance  Democrats,  and  their  suc- 
cessors Republicans,  and  in  most  cases  where  the  cause  was  specifically 
investigated,  the  reason  of  the  removal  was  foimd  to  be  political.  An 
investigation  conducted  by  the  Civil  Service  Cormnissioners  shows  that 
in  the  imclassified  offices  the  great  majority  of  those  in  office  during  one 
administration  were  removed  during  the  next,  the  evident  purpose  of 
this  being  to  provide  places  for  their  successors  for  political  reasons ;  while 
in  the  classified  service,  where  the  successor  was  appointed  upon  his 
merit,  and  not  as  a  matter  of  patronage,  the  average  number  of  changes 
have  been  less  than  20  per  cent  during  the  same  period.  The  comparative 
workings  of  this  system  cannot  better  be  shown  than  by  these  figures. 

The  sum  total  of  the  whole  matter  is  this;  the  service  is  better,  more 
permanent,  and  more  economical,  political  removals  are  eliminated,  and 
the  corrupting  influence  of  these  pohtical  prizes  upon  caucuses,  conven- 
tions, and  elections  is  removed,  just  in  the  proportion  that  civil  service 
reform  has  supplanted  the  system  of  patronage  and  spoils. 


APPENDIX  IV 

SECRET  SESSIONS  OF  THE  SENATE' 

If  we  were  looking  for  a  gauge  of  the  liberality  and  democratic  character 
of  any  particular  government,  we  could  find  a  pretty  accurate  one  in  the 
publicity  with  which  its  proceedings  were  conducted.  Just  in  the  propor- 
tion that  open  administration  takes  the  place  of  secret  intrigue  do  we  find 
the  institutions  of  a  community  free,  liberal,  and  beneficent.  Secrecy  is 
the  cloak  of  despotism.  It  is  only  that  which  is  fair  and  just  to  all  men 
which  can  bear  the  full  light  of  day.  It  was  the  robber  baron  who  needed 
the  secret  torture-chamber  and  the  oubliette  to  inspire  awe  and  shroud 
his  villainy.  It  was  the  tyranny  of  the  Bourbons  which  made  use  of  the 
lettres  de  cachet  and  the  iron  mask.  It  was  the  usurpation  of  the  Stuarts 
which  needed  the  star  chamber.  It  is  in  Russia  that  the  political  offender 
who  questions  the  beneficence  of  autocracy  is  tried  by  a  military  com- 
mission behind  closed  doors  or  sent  to  Siberia  by  secret  administrative 
order. 

Wherever  freedom  prevails,  whether  in  the  Athenian  Agora,  the  Swiss 
Canton,  or  the  American  Republic,  trials  are  held  in  the  light  of  day,  the 
accused  may  confront  his  accuser,  and  the  conduct  of  the  rulers  is  subject  to 
open  scrutiny.  The  world  believes  that  when  men  seek  to  cover  their 
official  conduct  with  the  irresponsibility  of  secret  proceedings  it  is  because 
their  action  will  not  bear  investigation,  that  they  "love  darkness  rather 
than  light  because  their  deeds  are  evil. " 

It  is  in  view  of  these  general  principles  that  we  are  called  upon  to  examine 
Rule  38  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  which  reads  as  follows: 

"All  information  communicated  or  remarks  made  by  a  Senator,  when 
acting  upon  nominations,  concerning  the  character  and  qualifications  of  the 
persons  nominated,  also  any  votes  upon  nominations,  shall  be  kept  secret. 
If,  however,  charges  shall  be  made  against  a  person  nominated  the  Com- 
mittee may  in  its  discretion  notify  such  nominee  thereof,  but  the  name  of 
the  person  making  such  charges  shall  not  be  disclosed. 

"Senators  who  violate  this  rule  are  liable  to  expulsion." 

In  other  parliamentary  and   congressional    proceedings  the  evolution 

'  An  address  delivered  at  the  League  Meeting  in  Buffalo,  September  30, 
1891. 

280 


APPENDIX  IV  281 

from  secrecy  to  publicity  has  corresponded  with  the  growth  of  popular 
institutions.  In  the  times  of  aristocratic  privilege  and  royal  prerogative 
Parliament  sat  in  secret.  It  was  a  contempt  and  a  crime  to  publish  the 
debates  or  the  votes.  The  right  of  a  member  to  report  his  own  speeches 
was  denied.  In  1641  Sir  Edward  Deering  was  expelled  and  sent  to  prison 
for  this  offense.  As  late  as  1747  the  editor  of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine 
was  brought  to  the  bar  for  reporting  the  proceedings  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  But  when  the  press  of  Great  Britain  locked  horns  with  parlia- 
mentary privilege,  the  latter  had  to  give  way  and  sessions  became  open  to 
the  public.  So,  too,  our  early  colonial  legislatures  transacted  their  busi- 
ness behind  closed  doors,  and  it  was  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  a 
commonwealth  whose  ear  has  always  been  the  first  to  catch  the  notes  from 
the  bugle  of  liberty,  which  first  allowed  publicity  to  its  own  debates  on 
motion  of  Mr.  Otis  in  1766. 

The  Articles  of  Confederation  required  Congress  (which  appointed  all 
federal  civU  and  naval  officers)  to  publish  "for  the  information  of  the 
people  "  a  complete  journal  of  its  proceedings,  saving  only  the  parts  relating 
to  "treaties,  alliances,  and  military  operations,  which  require  secrecy. "  It 
was  recognized  then  that  ordinary  civil  appointments  did  not  require 
secrecy.  When  the  Constitution  was  adopted  it  provided  that  each  House 
should  publish  a  journal  of  its  proceedings  "  excepting  only  such  as  might,  in 
its  judgment,  require  secrecy. "  It  was  not  considered  that  the  confirma- 
tion of  civil  appointments  rested  upon  any  other  basis  than  legislative 
proceedings.  Hamilton,  in  the  Federalist,  assumes  that  confirmations  will 
be  public  and  contrasts  the  Senate  with  the  New  York  Council  of  Appoint- 
ments "shut  up  in  a  private  apartment  and  impenetrable  to  the  public 
eye"  and  adds,  "every  such  Council  will  be  a  conclave  in  which  cabal  and 
intrigue  will  have  their  full  scope. " 

The  two  Houses  of  Congress  first  met  in  March,  1789,  but  both  were 
without  a  quorum  until  April.  Then  the  House  of  Representatives,  the 
more  popular  branch  of  Congress  (and  this  is  another  indication  how  surely 
publicity  follows  popular  institutions)  opened  its  doors  to  the  world.  The 
Senate,  which  claimed  to  represent  the  States  only  and  not  the  people,  held 
its  sessions  in  private,  and  for  four  years  resolutions  proposing  publicity 
were  defeated.  In  1793  the  responsibility  of  the  Senate  to  public  opinion 
began  to  be  recognized  and  the  doors  were  opened.  During  this  time,  how- 
ever, there  was  no  injunction  of  secrecy  laid  upon  Senators.  They  might 
tell  all  about  the  proceedings  if  they  wanted  to.  In  1800,  the  first  rule 
requiring  secrecy  was  adopted,  but  it  applied  only  to  confidential  com- 
munications from  the  President  and  to  treaties  pending  in  the  Senate.  It 
was  not  until  1820,  after  the  patronage  and  office-trading  introduced  by 
Aaron  Burr  and  Martin  Van  Buren  had  become  incorporated  into  New 
York  politics,  the  very  year  that  the  four-years'  term  of  office  was  created 
which  gave  to  the  Senate  such  increased  power  over  civil  appointments 
and  opened  the  way  to  infinite  intrigue  and  corruption,  that  "secrecy 


282  APPENDIX  IV 

became  necessary"  and  the  action  of  Senators  upon  executive  nominations 
was  withheld  from  the  public.  And  it  is  in  accordance  with  the  logic  of 
history  that  Marcy's  celebrated  saying,  "to  the  victor  belong  the  spoils  of 
the  enemy,"  was  uttered  in  one  of  these  secret  sessions.  Many  efforts 
were  made  to  remove  the  injunction  of  secrecy,  but  they  failed.  One  was 
attempted  by  Senator  Chase  and  supported  by  Sumner,  who  declared  that 
these  sessions  ought  to  be  like  the  house  which  the  old  Roman  desired 
made  of  transparent  material  that  the  world  might  know  all  that  was  done 
therein.  But  it  was  not  until  1867,  when  the  first  Tenure  of  Office  act  was 
passed  forbidding  the  President  to  remove  or  suspend  any  officer  without 
reporting  the  reasons  to  the  Senate  and  securing  its  consent,  that  it  was 
found  necessary  to  secure  the  secrecy  of  these  executive  sessions  by  threats 
of  expulsion  against  any  Senator  who  should  disclose  them. 

Bear  in  mind  that  this  rule  of  the  Senate  is  no  requirement  of  the  Con- 
stitution nor  even  of  a  public  statute  passed  by  both  Houses  of  Congress 
and  approved  by  the  President.  It  is  the  mere  private  arbitrary  regulation 
of  one  branch  of  the  federal  legislature.  It  was  itself  adopted  in  secret 
session.  In  addition  to  the  general  guarantees  of  public  trial,  free  speech, 
and  a  free  press,  which  are  in  effect  rendered  nugatory  by  secret  sessions, 
as  to  all  matters  there  considered,  it  provides  that  each  House  shall  publish 
a  journal  of  its  proceedings  "except  such  parts  as  may,  in  its  judgment, 
require  secrecy."  It  is  only  where  secrecy  is  necessary  that  it  is  to  be 
allowed,  and  while  the  respective  Houses  are  to  be  the  judges  of  this  neces- 
sity, they  have  at  least  no  moral  right  to  impose  it  without  good  cause  upon 
a  whole  domain  of  congressional  action. 

There  is  strong  reason  to  doubt  whether  the  power  of  confirmation  given 
to  the  Senate  by  the  Constitution  has  been  beneficial  to  the  country.  If 
it  could  have  been  exercised  in  the  manner  designed,  the  Senate  giving  to 
the  President  the  benefit  of  its  disinterested  counsel  and  informing  him  of 
the  qualifications  and  disqualifications  of  the  men  whom  he  proposed  to 
appoint,  of  course  this  limited  power  would  be  a  salutary  check  upon  bad 
appointments.  But  like  the  Electoral  College,  the  power  of  confirmation 
has  operated  in  quite  a  different  way  from  that  intended  and  it  has  had 
much  to  do  with  the  formation  of  that  injtuious  system  of  office  patronage 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  "  Courtesy  of  the  Senate, "  a  system  which  has 
been  developed  by  perfectly  natural  laws  out  of  the  constitutional  power  of 
confirmation.  Naturally  the  Senator  from  a  particular  State  will  know 
more  of  the  qualifications  of  the  proposed  appointee  from  that  State  than 
any  other  member  of  the  Senate.  Naturally  the  other  members  will  defer 
to  his  judgment  in  the  absence  of  better  means  of  information.  The  two 
causes — selfishness  and  lack  of  information — combine  to  cast  the  responsi- 
bility for  appointments  within  particular  States  upon  the  Senators  who 
represent  those  States.  This  secures  an  ' '  equitable ' '  partition  of  patronage. 
It  depends  for  its  consummation  upon  a  very  simple  principle,  "You  vote 
for  my  man  and  I  will  vote  for  yours. ' '    Each  Senator  has  friends  to  reward 


APPENDIX  IV  283 

and  enemies  to  punish.  He  will  not  be  slow  to  communicate  to  the  Execu- 
tive the  name  of  the  man  who  will  be  most  acceptable  to  him,  and  even 
to  hint  that  no  other  name  will  be  acceptable  at  all  either  to  himself  or 
his  fellow-Senators.  The  President  is  unwilling  to  send  in  nominations  for 
the  idle  purpose  of  having  them  rejected.  Hence  the  views  of  each  Senator 
upon  the  nominations  to  be  made  within  his  State  have  great  weight.  His 
previous  "advice  and  consent"  is  really  the  thing  that  determines  the 
appointment,  not  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  whole  body  after  the 
nomination  is  sent  in.  The  result  is  that  it  is  not  the  President  who  actu- 
ally makes  appointments,  but  the  Senators  distributing  patronage  in  their 
respective  States. 

The  courtesy  was  alwaj^,  in  substance,  says  Mr.  Eaton,  a  corrupt  barter 
of  duty  and  honor  for  power  and  patronage. 

Appointments  are  often  made  upon  condition  that  the  Senator  making 
the  appointment  and  the  Senators  co6perating  with  him  should  control 
subordinate  places  under  the  appointee.  The  henchmen  of  these  Senators 
are  thus  made  clerks,  messengers,  and  spittoon-cleaners  to  the  public  at 
large. 

This  system  of  courtesy  is  a  natural  development  of  the  practice  of  con- 
firmations by  the  Senate,  when  aided  by  the  irresponsibility  of  secret 
sessions. 

The  people  know  nothing  of  the  various  proceedings  leading  to  an 
appointment.  The  obligations  of  the  Senator  toward  the  applicant  for 
office  may  sometimes  be  of  the  most  criminally  secret  character.  The 
intrigues  for  his  nomination,  the  "pressure"  brought  upon  the  President  to 
secure  it,  can  never  be  divulged,  and  when  it  is  sent  to  the  Senate  the  state- 
ment of  qualifications  vouched  for  by  the  Senator  in  question  can  never  be 
known  nor  refuted  by  the  public. 

The  evils  which  are  thus  directly  traceable  to  the  secret  sessions,  or  dis- 
tinctly aided  by  them,  are  the  following : 

1st.  They  encourage  bargains  between  Senators  and  they  have  been 
greatly  responsible  for  the  system  of  "Senatorial  Courtesy"  described 
above.  They  have  converted  members  whose  duties  were  legislative  and 
advisory  into  active  office  seekers  and  corrupt  dispensers  of  patronage, 
thus  interfering  with  the  proper  discharge  of  their  functions,  demoralizing 
the  Senate,  and  leading  to  the  neglect  of  its  more  important  duties. 

2d.  They  impair  the  confidence  of  the  people  in  the  Senate  as  well  as 
in  individual  Senators.  Secrecy  inevitably  begets  suspicion.  Even  where 
the  motive  of  confirmation  or  rejection  is  a  fair  one,  if  there  be  any  grotmd  of 
criticism,  the  worst  will  be  inferred.  A  bargain  will  be  presumed  even 
where  it  does  not  exist  and  unworthy  motives  are  sure  to  be  imputed. 
Senators  will  be  accused  by  a  disappointed  office  seeker  even  if  they  had 
nothing  to  do  with  his  rejection.  Senators  will  be  suspected  of  corruptly 
supporting  a  bad  man  who  in  fact  voted  against  him.  Propriety  and 
impropriety,  innocence  and  guilt  will  be  confounded.    The  Senator  imjustly 


284  APPENDIX  IV 

suspected  cannot  protect  himself.  He  cannot  tell  the  truth  in  his  defense. 
The  good  may  lose  the  esteem  of  their  constituents  and  the  bad  retain 
a  popularity  wholly  undeserved,  while  the  entire  body  is  weakened  and 
discredited  in  popular  regard. 

3d.  These  secret  sessions  encourage  the  unworthy  to  apply  for  office 
by  the  promise  that  their  shortcomings  shall  not  be  exposed  nor  subjected 
to  public  scrutiny,  and  they  lead  to  the  confirmation  of  bad  men  either  from 
ignorance  or  to  "please  a  brother  Senator, "  without  the  people  being  able 
to  fix  the  responsibility  for  the  vote  or  statement  on  any  particular  Senator. 
In  like  manner  these  secret  sessions  defeat  good  nominations  by  political 
intrigues.  False  statements  may  be  used  with  impunity  to  screen  the  guilty 
and  attack  the  innocent. 

In  this  connection  the  question  naturally  arises:  Why  did  legislative 
sessions  become  public?  It  was  undoubtedly  owing  to  the  demand  of  the 
people  to  be  informed  as  to  the  conduct  of  their  representatives  regarding 
matters  which  affected  them  and  thus  to  fix  the  responsibility  for  official 
action.  But  have  the  people  no  interest  in  the  question  who  shall  be  the 
officers  to  administer  the  laws?  Is  the  Senate  no  longer  a  representative 
body  when  it  confirms  nominations?  Are  there  not  as  much  fraud  and 
venality  in  executive  appointments  as  in  legislation?  Often  indeed  the 
policy  of  the  government  is  outlined  by  a  particular  appointment.  For 
instance  the  Indian  policy  by  the  appointment  of  an  Indian  Commissioner, 
and  civil  service  reform  by  the  appointment  of  a  Postmaster-General. 
Have  the  people  no  right  to  hear  the  Senate's  discussions  of  these  matters? 

The  Senate  rule,  in  addition  to  the  injunction  of  secrecy,  contains  this 
remarkable  clause:  "If,  however,  charges  shall  be  made  against  a  person 
nominated,  the  Committee  may,  in  its  discretion,  notify  such  nominee 
thereof,  but  the  name  of  the  person  making  such  charges  shall  not  be  dis- 
closed." This  sentence  is  valuable  for  the  light  it  throws  upon  the  char- 
acter of  the  rule  requiring  secrecy.  Charges  are  to  be  heard  against  men 
in  their  absence,  and  except  for  this  provision,  they  are  to  take  no  part  in 
the  exoneration  of  themselves.  Accusations  of  every  kind  will  be  preferred 
of  incompetency,  imbecility,  drunkenness,  immorality,  and  crime.  Charges 
will  be  made  by  personal  enemies,  by  competing  aspirants  for  the  same 
office,  against  the  worthy  and  the  unworthy,  the  skillful  and  the  incom- 
petent, the  good  and  the  bad.  A  man  has  fairly  won  his  nomination  to  the 
Senate  by  a  life  of  integrity,  by  special  skill  in  the  work  to  which  he  is  to  be 
appointed;  a  career  of  usefulness  and  honor  is  open  to  him,  and  some  as- 
sassin of  character  who  hopes  to  profit  by  the  lie  sends  to  the  Committee 
the  charge  that  he  is  a  drunkard  or  an  embezzler,  and  in  secret  without  a 
word  of  explanation,  the  doors  of  opportunity  are  shut  in  his  face.  May 
not  the  consequences  to  him  be  just  as  grave  as  if  he  were  defendant  in  a 
civil  suit,  or  indeed  in  many  forms  of  even  criminal  prosecution?  Now 
change  the  case  and  suppose  this  were  a  proceeding  at  law.  What  would 
we  think  of  the  safeguards  thrown  around  the  person,  property,  or  repu- 


APPENDIX  IV  285 

tation  of  a  defendant  who  was  protected  by  a  law  providing  that  the  court 
trying  and  passing  judgment  upon  him  in  secret  might,  at  its  discretion, 
notify  him  of  the  charges  against  him ;  but  the  name  of  the  person  making 
such  charges  should  not  be  disclosed?  Must  not  the  Grand  Jury  when 
they  bring  their  bill  not  only  notify  the  accused  of  the  precise  charge  but 
endorse  the  names  of  the  witnesses  upon  it?  Cannot  the  defendant  con- 
front these  witnesses?  Must  not  the  name  of  the  plaintiff,  as  well  as  the 
character  and  circimistances  of  the  claim,  appear  in  every  civil  suit?  Our 
inheritance  of  Anglo-Saxon  instinct  tells  us  that  nothing  less  than  this  is 
fair  play,  that  nothing  less  is  necessary  to  protect  either  property  rights  or 
the  sacredness  of  human  character.  When  Torquemada  was  Inquisitor  the 
rules  of  his  tribunal  prescribed  substantially  that  if  charges  were  made, 
the  Holy  Office  might  at  its  discretion  notify  the  accused  what  they  were, 
but  the  name  of  the  person  making  them  should  not  be  disclosed.  When 
the  Council  of  Ten  consigned  the  innocent  to  a  shameful  death  from 
motives  of  State  policy,  they  might  at  their  discretion  notify  the  accused 
of  the  charge  against  him,  but  the  accuser  who  dropped  his  nameless 
accusation  into  the  lion's  mouth  was  not  disclosed.  Yet  to-day  we  are 
living  not  in  the  Dark  Ages  but  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century.  This 
is  not  the  Spain  of  Ferdinand  and  Charles  the  Fifth  and  Philip  the  Second, 
but  it  is  free  America.  This  is  not  the  secret  tribunal  of  Venice  which  has 
passed  into  history  loaded  with  the  execrations  of  mankind.  It  is  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  whose  halls  have  echoed  the  voices  of  Clay  and 
Webster,  Sumner  and  Chase!  The  common  opinion  of  the  world  consigns 
the  anonymous  informer  to  the  contempt  of  his  fellows.  Yet  here  are 
charges  invited  by  the  protection  of  obscurity  where  conviction  may  follow 
because  they  are  to  remain  anonymous.  Your  heart  and  mine  tell  us  that  it 
would  be  better  to  have  bad  men  in  office  than  to  resort  to  such  procedure 
as  this  to  weed  them  out.  But  true  charges  are  not  the  ones  most  readily 
stifled  by  pubHcity  nor  is  falsehood  most  easily  suppressed  by  the  immunity 
of  secrecy. 

Let  the  Senate  conform  to  the  ideals  of  republican  institutions;  let  the 
Senators  have  the  courage  pubHcly  to  be  true  to  the  trusts  committed  to 
them.  Then  and  not  till  then  will  the  fading  respect  which  our  people  have 
accorded  to  that  august  legislative  assembly  be  rehabilitated  and  it  will 
become  indeed  that  which  our  hopes  and  fancies  once  believed  it,  an 
impenetrable  bulwark  of  liberty. 


APPENDIX  V 

SPEECH  AT  REFORM  CLUB,   BOSTON,   SEPTEMBER   10,    1 892 
harrison's  civil  service  record 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen: 

I  would  speak  to  you  to-night  not  so  much  of  the  general  issues  of  the 
campaign  which  is  upon  us  as  of  that  single  one  to  which  I  have  specially 
given  my  heart  and  my  labor  during  the  past  eight  years,  the  reform  of  the 
civil  service. 

But  I  cannot  enter  upon  this  theme  without  first  bringing  to  your  minds 
the  cloud  that  has  so  lately  fallen  upon  us.  The  great  leader  of  civil  service 
reform  is  no  more.  That  voice  which  could  speak  to  us,  as  none  other  can 
to-day,  speaks  now  to  the  great  multitude  of  the  immortals;  that  hand 
which  wrote,  as  no  other  can  write  which  has  survived  it,  will  no  longer  be 
the  inspiration  of  oiu*  work,  nor  the  just  critic  of  our  success  or  failure. 

Since  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  the  cause  of  honest  government  and 
popular  institutions  has  hardly  sustained  a  heavier  loss  from  the  ranks  of 
civil  life  than  in  the  death  of  George  William  Curtis.  He  was  born  for  the 
highest  triumphs  of  literature.  All  that  he  said,  all  that  he  wrote,  was  re- 
dolent with  that  native  artistic  instinct  that  gave  him  a  place  among  the 
foremost  where  the  English  tongue  is  spoken.  But  this  he  subordinated 
to  the  demands  of  patriotic  duty. 

Most  charming  to  all  who  knew  him  in  social  intercourse,  it  was  ever  his 
aim  to  make  his  personality  a  means  for  the  advancement  of  the  public 
good.  He  loved  his  country  as  few  men  have  ever  loved  it.  He  con- 
secrated to  its  service  all  his  abimdant  gifts.  The  allurements  of  office 
and  power  he  could  cast  aside,  but  he  clung  always  and  immovably  to  the 
highest  convictions  of  duty. 

He  was  so  gentle  that  we,  who  were  more  swayed  by  prejudice  and  pas- 
sion, sometimes  wondered  whether  he  was  stem  enough  in  denoimcing  the 
iniquities  around  him,  but  when  we  thought  again,  it  was  not  only  his  charity 
but  his  inexorable  justice  which  demanded  that  due  credit  should  be  given 
for  all  that  was  good  whenever  wickedness  was  laid  bare  by  his  calm  and 
unflinching  criticism.  He  was  the  Aristides  of  these  latter  days,  the  embodi- 
ment of  patriotic  rectitude.    His  place  cannot  be  filled.    There  is  no  man 

286 


APPENDIX  V  287 

who  can  put  on  the  armor  he  has  cast  aside,  no  single  champion  who  can 
wield  his  sword  and  do  battle  as  he  did  for  the  cause  of  free  institutions. 
And  yet  his  memory  is  an  inspiration  that  shall  drive  from  our  hearts  all 
thought  of  relinquishing  tl^e  struggle. 

He  saw  the  reform  to  which  he  had  dedicated  so  much  of  his  life  only  in 
part  accomplished.  It  is  our  duty  to  see  that  it  does  not  falter  in  its 
progress,  to  do  as  bravely  as  we  can,  that  which  we  would  do  if  his  voice 
and  his  presence  were  with  us  to  cheer  us  to  the  victory  that  we  know  is 
coming. 

The  cause  which  he  stood  for  is  so  great  and  good  that  it  shall  live  and 
grow  even  without  his  leadership,  and  we  who  are  left  have  only  to  bend  our 
shoulders  to  a  heavier  burden  and  carry  it  to  its  consummation.  Let  us 
accept. the  task,  and,  as  apostles  of  this  great  gospel,  let  us  diffuse  to  the 
uttermost  parts  of  our  country,  the  message  that  he  gave  us,  until  the  old 
heathenism  of  spoils  politics  shall  be  utterly  exterminated. 

I  am  about  to  discuss  this  evening  the  conduct  of  the  present  Republican 
administration  since  it  came  into  power  in  respect  to  the  civil  service. 

Four  years  ago  I  voted  for  Benjamin  Harrison,  but  I  feel  no  embarrass- 
ment to-night  on  that  account.  Mr.  Cleveland,  as  some  of  us  thought  in 
Indiana,  had  not  filled  the  measure  of  his  promises  in  regard  to  civil  service 
reform.  The  obstacles  in  his  path  were  enormous;  the  impossibility  of 
keeping  his  party  together  except  by  concessions  was  evident.  Still  we 
were  disposed  to  measure  him  by  the  absolute  standard  of  duty,  and, 
judged  by  this  standard,  he  had  fallen  short  of  realizing  his  own  ideals.  He 
had  stood  for  a  long  time  a  bulwark  against  the  plunderers  of  public  service, 
but  breaches  had  been  made  in  the  defenses,  and  an  Indiana  civil  service 
reformer,  who  sees  the  worst  of  spoils  politics  at  his  very  door,  is  not 
lenient. 

"We  had  known  Mr.  Harrison  well.  Both  in  public  declarations  and  pri- 
vate talk  he  had  given  us  the  fullest  assurance  of  his  sympathy.  He  had 
said:  "I  am  an  advocate  of  civil  service  reform.  My  brief  experience  at 
Washington  has  led  me  to  utter  the  wish,  with  an  emphasis  I  do  not  often 
use,  that  I  might  be  forever  relieved  of  any  connection  with  the  distribution 
of  public  patronage.  I  covet  for  myself  the  free  and  unpurchased  support 
of  my  fellow-citizens."  His  private  and  public  life,  as  far  as  it  could  be 
observed  by  those  around  him,  was  clean  and  honorable;  the  promises  of 
the  party  made  in  the  words  that  George  William  Curtis  had  penned 
supplemented  by  his  own  expressions  of  equal  significance,  were  all  that  we 
could  ask.  We  believed  him  and  we  supported  him.  Now  we  have  had 
the  proof  of  four  years'  trial.  His  administration  and  that  of  Mr.  Cleve- 
land can  be  laid  side  by  side. 

Mr.  Harrison's  word  was  not  made  good,  his  promises  have  not  been 
fulfilled.  Upon  the  abandoned  pledge,  upon  his  violated  faith  and  not 
upon  our  inconsistency,  must  rest  the  responsibility  for  our  defection. 

"The  reform  of  the  civil  service  [says  the  platform  of  1888],  auspiciously 


288  APPENDIX  V 

begun  under  a  Republican  administration,  should  be  completed  by  the 
further  extension  of  the  reform  system  already  established  by  law  to  all 
grades  of  service  to  which  it  is  applicable." 

The  only  extensions  of  the  classified  service  made  by  Mr.  Harrison  in 
pursuance  of  this  promise  of  the  platform  were  to  about  seven  hundred 
teachers  and  superintendents  in  the  Indian  Bureau,  less  than  two  hundred  in 
the  Fish  Commission,  and  a  few  employees  in  the  Patent  Office.  The  entire 
number  of  such  extensions  is  not  far  from  one  thousand. 

But  there  are  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  places  in  the  federal  civil 
service  which  still  remain  unclassified. 

Secretary  Tracy  has,  indeed,  provided  for  a  registration  of  laborers  in  the 
Navy  Department,  under  a  system  quite  similar  to  the  classified  service, 
although  it  is  not  embraced  within  the  rules  or  placed  under  control  of  the 
Civil  Service  Commissioners,  and  it  would  be  discretionary  for  any  sub- 
sequent Secretary  of  the  Navy  to  abolish  his  regulations.  With  these 
exceptions  there  has  been  absolutely  nothing  done  by  the  present  adminis- 
tration in  performance  of  its  promise  that  the  reform  system  should  be 
extended  to  all  the  branches  of  the  classified  service  to  which  it  is  ap- 
plicable. 

The  civil  service  law  itself  provided  that  it  should  apply  to  all  post  offices 
and  custom  house  offices  having  fifty  or  more  employees,  and  that  it  should 
be  extended  to  other  post  offices  and  custom  houses  having  less  than  fifty 
employees,  whenever  so  ordered  by  the  President.  The  law  itself  desig- 
nated these  custom  houses  and  post  offices  as  places  to  which  it  was 
applicable. 

After  the  accession  of  President  Harrison  to  office,  his  own  Civil  Service 
Commissioners  reported,  recommending  its  extension  to  post  offices  having 
twenty-five  employees  or  more,  and  afterwards,  in  1891,  to  custom  houses 
and  internal  revenue  districts  in  which  there  are  twenty-five  or  more 
employed,  as  well  as  to  clerks  in  the  navy  yards,  to  the  employees  of  the 
District  of  Columbia,  to  the  mints  and  sub-treasuries,  and  to  all  free 
delivery  post  offices. 

Yet  during  his  entire  term.  President  Harrison  has  utterly  failed  to  extend 
it  to  any  of  these  places.  A  clearer  violation  of  the  written  promise  of  the 
party  could  not  be  imagined. 

If  there  was  any  branch  of  the  service  where  appointments  should  have 
depended  upon  the  fitness  of  the  appointee,  as  proved  by  examination  and 
probation,  and  not  upon  patronage  and  political  favor  it  was  the  Census 
Bureau.  It  was  the  plain  duty  of  those  in  charge  of  this  bureau  to  give 
to  the  people  the  exact  facts  as  to  all  matters  inquired  of,  unwarped  by 
political  bias.  If  the  promise  of  the  Republican  platform  had  any  sig- 
nificance at  all,  it  meant  that  the  President  would  extend  this  competitive 
system  to  the  clerks  of  the  Census  Bureau,  when  that  bureau  should  be 
established.  Mr.  Harrison,  in  concurring  with  and  adopting  the  platform, 
distinctly  made  this  promise  his  own.    His  Civil  Service  Commissioners 


APPENDIX  V  289 

advised  this  extension  also.  The  President  refused  to  make  it.  The 
Census  Bureau  has  been  used  as  a  partisan  machine  and  the  result  of 
the  work  has  been  greatly  discredited. 

In  his  inaugiu-al,  President  Harrison  declared:  "Heads  of  depart- 
ments, bureaus,  and  other  public  offices  having  any  duty  connected 
therewith,  will  be  expected  to  enforce  the  civil  service  law  fully  and 
without  evasion."  How  far,  then,  has  the  law  been  enforced? 

The  Civil  Service  Commission,  whose  duty  it  is  to  care  for  this,  is  com- 
posed of  three  members,  two  of  whom  must  belong  to  opposite  poHtical 
parties.  When  the  present  administration  came  into  power,  Charles 
Lyman,  a  Republican,  was  the  sole  acting  Commissioner.  Mr.  Harrison 
then  appointed  Theodore  Roosevelt,  a  Republican,  and  Governor  Hugh  S. 
Thompson,  a  Democrat,  a  man  who  had  been  selected  for  the  place  by  Mr. 
Cleveland  before  he  went  out  of  office.  These  were  excellent  men,  who 
determined  to  enforce  the  law  impartially,  so  far  as  they  had  the  power. 
They  could  see  that  examinations  were  fairly  conducted  and  they  did. 
But  they  could  not  remove  any  officer  who  violated  the  law,  they  could 
not  personally  conduct  prosecutions,  they  could  merely  investigate,  report, 
and  recommend.  The  rest  lay  with  the  President,  the  Cabinet  officers,  and 
their  subordinates,  and  these  have  utterly  failed  in  many  important 
instances  to  sustain  the  Commission  in  their  efforts. 

Take,  for  example,  the  Baltimore  post  office.  Commissioner  Roosevelt 
heard  that  this  office  was  being  used  to  influence  a  primary  election  on 
March  30,  1891,  and  he  went  to  Baltimore  personally  to  investigate  the 
matter.     His  report  contains  the  following: 

"The  primaries  held  on  March  30th  were  marked  by  a  bitter  contest 
between  two  factions  of  the  Republican  party. 

"As  a  whole,  the  contest  was  marked  by  great  fraud  and  no  little  vio- 
lence. Many  of  the  witnesses  of  each  faction  testified  that  the  leaders 
of  the  opposite  faction  in  their  ward  had  voted  repeaters.  Democrats  and 
men  living  outside  of  the  ward,  in  great  numbers.  .  .  .  Accusations  of 
ballot-box  stuffing  were  freely  made,  with  much  appearance  of  justification. 
A  nimiber  of  fights  took  place.  In  many  wards  there  were  several  arrests. 
In  one  or  two  cases  so  many  men  were  arrested  that  the  police  patrol  wagons 
could  not  accommodate  them.  In  several  cases  the  Judges  of  the  Election 
were  themselves  among  those  arrested.  ..." 

As  to  the  post  office  and  marshal's  office,  Mr.  Roosevelt  reports,  "The 
evidence  seems  to  be  perfectly  clear  that  both  these  offices  were  used  with 
the  purpose  of  interfering  with  or  controlling  the  result  of  the  primary 
election,  and  that  there  was  a  systematic,  though  sometimes  indirect,  effort 
made  to  assess  the  government  employees,  in  both,  for  political  purposes," 
and  he  recommended  the  dismissal  of  some  twenty  culprits.  "It  is  evi- 
dent, "  he  adds,  "from  the  testimony,  that  the  non-classified  service  in  the 
Baltimore  post  office,  as  is  the  case  with  the  non-classified  service  in  almost 
every  patronage  office,  was  treated  as  a  bribery  chest,  from  which  to  reward 
19 


290  APPENDIX  V 

influential  ward  workers  who  were  useful,  or  likely  to  be  useful,  to  the 
faction  in  power.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Johnson  (the  Baltimore  postmaster)  has  filled  the  entire  unclassi- 
fied and  half  the  classified  service  with  Republican  ward  workers,  and  has 
permitted  the  post  office  to  be  turned  into  a  machine  to  influence  primary 
elections. " 

Copies  of  this  report  were  sent  on  August  4,  1891,  to  the  President, 
to  Postmaster-General  Wanamaker,  to  Mr.  Foster,  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, and  to  Mr.  Miller,  Attorney  General.  Although  the  report  was 
delivered  in  person  by  one  of  the  clerks  of  the  Commission,  the  Attorney 
General  stated  that  he  never  knew  anything  of  it  imtil  nine  months  after, 
when  the  matter  was  investigated  by  Congress.  The  Solicitor  General  had 
never  looked  upon  the  testimony  as  calling  for  action !  Secretary  Foster 
says:  "Upon  inquiry  at  the  department,  I  find  that  probably,  about  the 
time  that  this  report  was  printed,  a  copy  was  sent  to  the  department.  It 
so  happened  that  I  never  saw  it  and  we  cannot  find  it  at  the  department." 

Postmaster-General  Wanamaker,  however,  saw  the  copy  which  was  sent 
to  him.  But  not  a  single  one  of  the  violators  of  the  laws  was  removed  or 
punished  for  his  misconduct. 

On  April  19,  1892,  the  House  of  Representatives  instructed  its  Select 
Committee  on  Civil  Service  Reform  to  inquire  whether  these  men  were 
still  in  office  or  whether  any  of  them  had  been  prosecuted. 

Mr.  Wanamaker  admitted  to  the  committee  that  they  were  all  still  in 
the  government  service.  He  had  another  investigation  made  by  some 
post-ofiice  inspectors  of  his  own,  who  reported  in  the  following  Decem- 
ber (four  months  afterwards)  that:  "After  hearing  the  evidence  from  all 
the  witnesses  and  the  accused  and  giving  the  whole  subject  thoughtful 
study  and  consideration,  we  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  facts  do  not  justify 
the  dismissal  of  the  twenty-one  men  or  of  any  for  violation  of  the  civil  service 
law,  as  charged." 

The  key  to  this  disgraceful  business  is  foimd  in  the  fact  that  at  the 
Minneapolis  Convention,  Postmaster  Johnson  led  a  club  from  Baltimore, 
and  that  he  and  his  lawbreaking  subordinates  were  among  the  most  active 
and  influential  of  the  supporters  of  Harrison  for  renomination. 

In  many  other  cases  contributions  were  shamelessly  demanded  from 
ofl&ceholders  in  plain  violation  of  law,  and  no  man  has  been  pimished  for 
it. 

Hie  blackmailing  of  government  employees  went  on  two  years  ago  and 
is  going  on  to-day  as  flagrantly  as  in  the  time  of  Congressman  Hubbell. 

Thus  has  the  President  enforced  the  law  and  his  own  regulations  made  in 
pm-suance  of  its  provisions. 

Another  part  of  the  promise  in  the  Republican  platform  was  this:  "All 
laws  at  variance  with  the  object  of  existing  reform  legislation  should  be 
repealed." 

The  Republican  party  has  been  in  power  for  four  years,  for  two  years  it 


APPENDIX  V  291 

had  control  of  the  Senate,  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  the  executive 
branch  of  the  government,  yet  no  bill  has  been  passed  to  repeal  any  law 
at  variance  with  the  reform  legislation  referred  to  in  the  platform.  There 
has  been  not  the  slightest  pretense  of  even  attempting  to  fulfill  this  explicit 
promise  of  the  platform. 

Another  declaration  of  the  Republican  platform  is:  "The  spirit  and 
purpose  of  the  reform  should  be  observed  in  all  executive  appoint- 
ments." 

This  spirit  and  purpose  was  to  make  appointments  depend  upon  proved 
worth  and  not  upon  political  considerations. 

The  man  who  has  the  most  extensive  appointing  power  in  the  civil  service 
is  the  First  Assistant  Postmaster-General.  Into  his  hands  are  committed 
all  changes  in  fourth-class  postmasterships,  not  far  from  fifty  thousand  in 
number.     Whom  does  the  President  select  to  do  this  work? 

He  appoints  J.  S.  Clarkson,  a  politician  of  the  same  class  as  Quay,  Piatt, 
and  Dudley.  Mr.  Clarkson  has  declared  in  his  speeches  as  well  as  in 
published  articles,  his  contempt  for  this  reform.  Men  do  not  gather  grapes 
of  thorns,  nor  figs  of  thistles,  nor  could  the  President  hope  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  his  promises  by  such  an  agent.  Under  Clarkson 's  administration 
poHtical  executions  have  gone  on  at  a  more  rapid  rate  than  ever  before,  and 
the  entire  service,  including  all  desirable  fourth-class  postmasterships,  has 
been  substantially  changed  for  political  reasons. 

Shortly  after  Mr.  Harrison's  inauguration  he  appointed  Joel  B.  Erhardt, 
a  RepubUcan  politician,  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York.  Erhardt 
turned  out  to  be  an  efficient  man,  and  enforced  the  civil  service  regulations 
so  faithfully  that  the  politicians  were  dissatisfied.  But  after  a  while  he 
resigned,  and  he  thus  tells  the  reason  of  his  resignation. 

"  I  have  resigned  because  the  Collector  has  been  reduced  to  a  position 
where  he  is  no  longer  an  independent  officer  with  authority  commensurate 
with  his  responsibility.  My  duties  are  necessarily  performed  through 
about  fifteen  hundred  employees.  I  am  not  willing  to  be  responsible  for 
their  conduct  unless  I  can  have  proper  authority  over  them.  The  recent 
policy  of  the  Treasury  Department  has  been  to  control  the  details  of  the 
customs  administration  at  the  port  of  New  York  from  Washington,  at  the 
dictation  of  a  private  individual  having  no  official  responsibility.  The 
Collector  is  practically  deprived  of  power  and  control,  while  he  is  left 
subject  to  all  responsibility.  The  ofi&ce  is  no  longer  independent,  and  I  am. 
Therefore  we  have  separated." 

The  private  individual  referred  to  was  Mr.  Thomas  C.  Piatt,  the  Republi- 
can boss  of  the  State  of  New  York.  In  place  of  Erhardt,  Mr.  Harrison 
appointed  Mr.  Fassett,  Piatt's  man.  Collector.  Fassett  said  when  he  was 
appointed  that  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the  duties  of  the  place. 

When  Mr.  Fassett  was  sworn  in  a  San  Domingo  cutlass,  of  barbaric 
origin,  was  presented  to  him  emblematic  of  the  spoils  system,  and  with 
the  following  legend: 


292  APPENDIX  V 

"This  cutlass  is  an  instrument  of  torture  to  be  used  in  beheading  Demo- 
crats.    Use  it  quickly  and  success  is  assured  for  the  Republican  party. 

"Republican  directions:  Use  daily,  morning,  noon,  and  night,  until  every 
Democratic  head  is  severed.     Sure  cure  for  Democratic  headache. " 

Fassett  had  scarcely  taken  the  oath  of  office  when  he  left  the  city  to 
take  charge  of  the  Piatt  division  in  a  quarrel  in  Chemung  County.  He 
soon  resigned  the  place,  however,  to  be  candidate  for  Governor,  for  which 
office  he  was  defeated  by  a  large  majority. 

[A  large  nimiber  of  disreputable  appointments  were  now  enumerated, 
among  them  Flanagan  of  Texas,  a  man  who  passed  into  immortality  by 
his  declaration  at  the  National  Convention  of  1888,  "What  are  we  here 
for  if  not  for  the  offices?"  Instances  were  given  of  the  appointment  of 
thugs,  defaulters,  men  indicted  for  crimes  against  the  ballot,  official  con- 
spirators, and  other  men  of  tmsavory  reputation.] 

But  by  far  the  most  flagrant  abuse  of  civil  service  principles  made  by 
the  present  administration  has  been  shown  by  the  manner  in  which  Mr. 
Harrison  secured  his  renomination  at  Minneapolis.  Unless  the  people  can 
be  protected  against  the  interference  of  the  executive  in  an  effort  to  secure 
his  own  renomination,  popular  government  is  a  sham  and  a  failure.  An 
honorable  President  does  not  actively  seek  his  own  renomination.  Should 
he  seek  it,  he  is  boimd  to  do  so  by  means  outside  of  his  official  control. 
To  force  himself  upon  his  own  party  as  its  candidate,  through  the  agency 
of  his  own  appointees  to  office,  is  simply  to  Mexicanize  our  government. 
He  might  just  as  well  do  it  through  the  army. 

Before  the  conventions  met  which  selected  the  delegates  to  Minneapolis, 
Harrison  officeholders  were  hurrying  aroimd  the  country  employing  every 
political  method  to  secure  delegates  instructed  for  the  President  or  favorable 
to  his  renomination.  Every  convention  possible  they  attended  in  large 
force,  and  took  the  most  prominent  part  in  packing  these  bodies  in  his 
favor. 

These  efforts  were  successful  mainly  through  the  lack  of  any  other 
available  man  for  the  place.  Mr.  Blaine  had  written  a  letter  to  Mr.  Clark- 
son,  saying  that  his  name  would  not  be  presented,  and  so  many  pledges 
and  instructions  were  secured  for  Mr.  Harrison  that  it  was  afterwards 
impossible  to  change  the  result.  To  use  the  words  of  Mr.  Lucius  B.  Swift , 
who  was  in  1888  a  strong  supporter  of  Mr.  Harrison,  "The  successful  candi- 
date was  successful  because  through  his  henchmen  he  had  the  convention 
literally  by  the  throat.  One  hundred  and  forty  place-holders,  at  the  least 
estimate,  had  votes.  On  the  best  authority,  at  least  3000  other  place- 
holders gathered  around  and  bore  down  opposition.  All  these  were  led  by 
a  place-holder  who  makes  $30,000  or  $40,000  a  year  out  of  his  place,  and 
came  specially  from  London  for  this  purpose.  The  whole  was  superintended 
by  the  President,  who  had  wires  connecting  the  White  House  with  the 
convention,  and  who,  as  the  Indianapolis  Journal  puts  it,  was  busy  sending 
and  receiving  communications  from  the  seat  of  war.     It  is  to  be  hoped  that 


APPENDIX  V  293 

our  United  States  government  has  now  reached  its  lowest  point  of  degrada- 
tion. It  would  not  seem  that  political  pirates  or  buccaneers  could  get,  or 
would  want,  greater  power. " 

It  was  currently  reported  and  believed  that  many  of  the  Southern  dele- 
gates, even  though  instructed  for  Harrison,  had  to  be  bought  and  re-bought 
several  times.  The  bulk  of  them  finally  voted  for  the  renomination  of 
the  President. 

Here  is  a  message  from  Washington  sent  by  Mr.  Foster,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  to  the  Utah  member  of  the  Republican  National  Committee: 

"Whatever  you  can  do  for  us  at  Minneapolis  will  be  duly  appreciated 
and  gratefully  remembered  in  Washington." 

Among  the  place-holders  who  swarmed  to  Minneapolis  were:  Land 
Commissioner  Carter,  Assistant  Postmaster-General  Rathbone,  United 
States  Marshal  Ransdell,  Fourth  Auditor  Lynch,  and  Register  Bruce  who 
led  the  Washington  contingent.  Postmaster  Johnson  led  a  club  from 
Baltimore.  The  President's  brother.  United  States  Marshal  Carter  Harri- 
son, had  charge  of  the  Tennessee  delegation.  Postmaster  Thompson 
and  his  assistants,  Wallace,  Patterson,  and  Woodward,  and  United  States 
Marshal  Dunlap,  Pension  Agent  Ensley,  Collector  Hildebrand,  and  United 
States  District  Attorney  Chambers  headed  the  Indianapolis  place-holders, 
while  those  of  New  York  were  led  by  Postmaster  Van  Cott,  Naval  Officer 
Willis,  and  Collector  Hendricks.  This  was  the  way  throughout  the  United 
States. 

[The  scandals  connected  with  the  appointment  and  administration  of 
Postmaster-General  Wanamaker  were  here  given  in  detail.] 

Not  only  is  Wanamaker  richly  rewarded  for  his  diligence  in  securing 
financial  aid,  but  others  were  taken  care  of  in  proportion  to  the  value  of 
their  financial  services.  Thus  Allen  Thomdike  Rice  of  the  North  American 
Review  contributes  $15,000  and  becomes  Minister  to  Russia. 

I  once  listened  to  the  rather  frank  complaint  of  an  eminent  Republican 
who  declared  that  he  gave  $30,000  to  the  campaign  fund  and  all  he  asked 
was  one  office  for  a  friend.  "They  promised  it  to  me, "  he  said,  "but  when 
the  time  came  they  postponed  and  took  it  back,  and  at  last,  when  I  got  the 
place,  I  was  madder  than  if  they  had  not  given  it  to  me  at  all. " 

So  it  appears  that  the  campaign  contributor  demands  not  only  a  giver 
of  places  in  return  for  his  contribution,  but  a  prompt  and  cheerful  giver, 
who  will  not  hesitate  upon  such  paltry  considerations  as  the  character  and 
qualifications  of  the  man  to  be  appointed. 

If  claim  to  office  is  to  be  based  upon  the  amoimt  of  one's  contribution  to 
the  campaign  fimd,  why  would  it  not  be  well  to  have  a  price  current  of  the  . 
offices  of  the  country,  Cabinet  positions  to  be  rated  at  their  hundreds  of 
thousands,  foreign  missions  at  their  tens  of  thousands,  and  consulships 
and  post  offices  at  their  thousands  and  hundreds  respectively? 

What  more  effective  way  of  levying  assessments  for  political  purposes? 

If  politics  is  to  become  a  matter  of  commerce,  why  not  make  the  market 


294  APPENDIX  V 

rates  as  definite  and  as  easily  accessible  as  possible  to  all  bidders?  Let  us 
have  a  great  bucket  shop,  an  office  exchange,  where  the  bids  and  offers  for 
various  positions  may  be  readily  reported  upon  a  ticker,  and  where  all  men 
may  have  an  equal  chance  of  giving  the  required  consideration  for  any 
place  of  honor  and  profit  in  the  State.  If  the  last  mission  to  Russia  was 
worth  $15,000  how  much  shall  the  next  mission  bring?  If  $400,000  shall 
secure  the  Postmaster-Generalship,  what  shall  be  the  market  rate  for  the 
office  of  Secretary  of  State? 

These  things  mean  something  more  than  the  mass  of  our  people  seem  to 
think.  They  mean  the  degradation  of  public  virtue.  They  mean  unworthi- 
ness  for  that  system  of  popular  government  which  our  fathers  laid  in 
patriotism,  and  which  their  descendants  threaten  to  overwhelm  by  venality. 
Pecuniary  corruption  is  the  most  dangerous  enemy  of  republican  govern- 
ment. 

These  considerations  seem  to  me  clearly  to  point  out  the  duty  and 
probable  course  of  the  independent  voter  in  this  campaign.  And,  unless 
I  am  greatly  mistaken,  this  election  will  depend  more  than  any  previous 
one  upon  the  unbought,  intelligent,  independent  vote. 


APPENDIX  VI 

PLATFORMS  AND   PROMISES'^ 

When  Deacon  Smith  said  to  Deacon  Jones,  "You  don  't  suppose,  Deacon 
that  those  little  stories,  sort  of  lies  like,  which  you  and  I  tell  in  the  way  of 
trade  will  ever  be  counted  against  us  in  the  great  day  of  judgment?"  he 
gave  utterance  to  a  sentiment  which  common  opinion  has  attributed  to  most 
of  the  professors  of  statesmanship  from  the  time  of  Machiavelli  down  to 
the  days  of  John  Wanamaker. 

Personally,  some  of  these  men  do  what  they  promise.  But  politically, 
repudiation  of  their  word  is  not  to  be  reckoned  against  them  in  the  great 
day.  And  so  it  has  come  to  pass  that  a  political  platform  is  held  to  be  as 
untrustworthy  as  an  epitaph  and  that  a  man  whom  you  could  safely  leave 
alone  with  a  bushel  of  uncounted  gold  pieces  in  the  dark,  can  by  no  means 
be  relied  upon  not  to  turn  much  of  his  official  power  and  influence  to  the 
private  gain  of  his  party  and  perhaps  of  himself. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  consider  the  declarations  of  the  two 
great  parties  and  their  candidates,  as  well  as  some  of  the  more  recent  dis- 
crepancies between  promise  and  performance  in  regard  to  civil  service 
reform. 

The  reform  itself,  at  least  so  far  as  the  competitive  system  is  concerned, 
is  of  comparatively  recent  origin.  Little  was  known  of  it  in  America  until 
some  time  after  the  war.  The  Republican  platform  of  1864  declared: 
"We  regard  as  worthy  of  public  confidence  and  official  trust  those  only  who 
cordially  endorse  the  principles  proclaimed  in  these  resolutions."  None 
but  Republicans  must  be  appointed  to  office.  There  was  no  distinction 
between  political  and  non-political  places.  But  in  considering  this  plat- 
form, the  standards  of  to-day  cannot  be  applied.  The  time  was  critical. 
The  principle  was  that  of  the  old  command:  "Put  none  but  Americans 
on  guard  to-night. "  A  non-partisan  civil  service  was  an  imknown  thing. 
The  Democratic  platform  said  nothing  on  the  subject.  The  issues  were 
quite  foreign  to  this  reform. 

In  the  Grant  and  Seymour  campaign  of  1868,  the  Democracy  demanded 
a  reform  of  abuses,  the  expulsion  of  corrupt  men,  and  the  abrogation  of 

»  Paper  read,  April  26, 1893,  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Reform  League 
in  New  York  City. 

295 


296  APPENDIX  VI 

useless  oflELces,  and  denoiinced  Congress  for  stripping  the  President  of  his 
constitutional  power  of  appointment  even  of  members  of  his  own  Cabinet. 
^  The  Republicans,  on  the  other  hand,  attacked  President  Johnson  for 
turning  the  public  patronage  into  an  engine  of  wholesale  corruption.  The 
declarations  were  general  in  character  and  had  little  reference  to  what  is 
now  known  as  civil  service  reform. 

In  the  Grant  and  Greeley  campaign  of  1872,  the  abuses  of  administration 
had  become  serious.  The  Democratic  platform  waxed  eloquent  in  denxmci  - 
ation  of  them  saying: 

"The  civil  service  of  the  government  has  become  a  mere  instnmient  of 
partisan  tyranny  and  personal  ambition,  and  an  object  of  selfish  greed.  It 
is  a  scandal  and  reproach  upon  free  institutions  and  breeds  a  demoraH- 
zation  dangerous  to  the  perpetuity  of  republican  government.  We  there- 
fore regard  a  thorough  reform  of  the  civil  service  as  one  of  the  most  pressing 
necessities  of  the  hour,  and  insist  that  honesty,  capacity,  and  fidelity  con- 
stitute the  only  valid  claim  to  public  employment,  that  the  offices  of  the 
government  cease  to  be  a  matter  of  arbitrary  favoritism  and  patronage,  and 
that  public  station  again  become  a  post  of  honor.  To  this  end  it  is  impera- 
tively required  that  no  President  shall  be  a  candidate  for  reelection." 

This  declaration  is  quite  comprehensive.  If  it  were  fully  carried  out 
there  would  be  an  excellent  civil  service.  But  no  specific  means  except 
the  one-term  limitation  was  suggested  for  its  accomplishment.  The 
reform  was  still  to  be  brought  about  by  the  vague,  spasmodic,  and  ephem- 
eral process  of  turning  bad  men  out  and  putting  good  men  in  their  places 
— a  thing  which  all  have  favored  from  the  dawn  of  history  but  which  few 
have  ever  seen  accomplished. 

The  Republican  platform  declared: 

"  Any  system  of  civil  service  reform  in  which  the  subordinate  positions 
of  the  government  are  considered  rewards  for  mere  party  zeal  is  fatally 
demoralizing,  and  we  therefore  favor  a  reform  of  the  system  by  laws  which 
will  abolish  the  evils  of  patronage  and  make  honesty,  efficiency,  and  fidel- 
ity the  essential  qualifications  for  public  position  without  practically  creating 
a  life  tenure  of  office." 

The  Republican  platform  went  beyond  the  Democratic.  This  reform 
was  to  be  brought  about  by  a  general  law.  That  was  a  great  step.  Yet 
still  the  suggestion  was  far  from  complete.  What  kind  of  a  law  was  this  to 
be?  How  should  honesty,  efficiency,  and  fidelity  be  made  the  essential 
qualifications  for  public  position?  The  platform  does  not  inform  us.  Such 
a  law  would  be  immensely  desirable,  but  how  should  the  bill  be  drawn? 

During  the  next  four  years  there  was  another  decided  advance.  The 
first  Civil  Service  Commission  appointed  by  President  Grant,  of  which 
George  William  Curtis  was  the  distinguished  head,  reported  the  satis- 
factory results  of  the  competitive  system  so  far  as  it  had  been  tried.  In 
1874  the  President  transmitted  this  report  to  Congress  with  favorable 
conaments,  but  Congress  refused  an  appropriation.     Public  sentiment,  how- 


APPENDIX  VI  297 

ever,  had  grown,  and  in  the  Tilden  and  Hayes  campaign  of  1876,  the 
Democratic  platform  made  a  distinct  declaration  against  a  clean  sweep, 
against  the  appointment  of  men  for  mere  party  considerations,  against  the 
dispensing  of  patronage  for  political  purposes.  These  resolutions — which 
will  be  considered  hereafter — derive  additional  importance  from  the  fact 
that  they  were  reiterated  in  the  platform  of  last  year  and  constitute  in 
great  measure  the  standard  of  duty  established  for  the  present  adminis- 
tration. 

The  Republican  platform  of  1876  lagged  far  behind.     It  merely  said: 

"We  rejoice  in  the  quickened  conscience  of  the  people  concerning  political 
aflfairs,  and  will  hold  all  public  officers  to  a  rigid  responsibility  and  engage 
that  the  prosecution  and  pimishment  of  all  who  betray  official  trusts  shall 
be  speedy,  thorough,  and  imsparing." 

Here  was  no  rule  of  appointment,  no  exclusion  of  political  considerations 
— nothing  but  a  promise  to  prosecute  those  who  violated  the  criminal  law. 
But  during  the  administration  of  President  Hayes,  Mr.  Dorman  B.  Eaton 
presented  his  admirable  report  upon  the  history  of  the  civil  service  in 
Great  Britain.  The  Jay  Commission  had  shown  the  advantages  of  the 
competitive  system  in  the  New  York  custom  house.  Mr.  James  had  es- 
tablished the  reform  in  the  New  York  post  office. 

In  1880 — the  Garfield  and  Hancock  campaign — the  Democratic  platform 
promised  a  thorough  reform  of  the  civil  service  without,  however,  stating 
what  that  was  to  be. 

The  RepubUcan  platform  was  more  definite.  The  convention  adopted 
the  declaration  of  President  Hayes  that  the  reform  of  the  civil  service 
should  be  thorough,  radical,  and  complete. 

"To  this  end  it  demands  the  cooperation  of  the  legislative  with  the  execu- 
tive department  of  the  government,  and  that  Congress  shall  so  legislate 
that  fitness  ascertained  by  proper  practical  tests  shall  admit  to  the  public 
service." 

This  declaration  acquires  additional  meaning  from  the  fact  that  the 
particular  reform  to  which  President  Hayes  referred  was  the  one  providing 
for  a  Civil  Service  Commission  and  for  competitive  examinations.  The 
demand  for  the  cooperation  of  the  legislature  meant  that  the  classified 
system  should  be  established  by  law,  and  it  was  in  piu-suance  of  this  plat- 
form that  the  federal  Civil  Service  Act  was  passed  during  the  following 
Presidential  term. 

But  it  is  with  the  platforms  and  promises  of  candidates  since  that  time 
that  we  have  principally  to  deal  to-day. 

In  1884  the  competitive  system  had  just  been  established.  In  the 
Republican  convention  of  that  year  was  the  greatest  of  all  civil  service 
reformers,  Mr.  George  William  Curtis.  To  his  hand  was  entrusted  the 
drafting  of  the  resolution.  From  his  skillful  pen  there  came  the  fullest, 
completest,  and  most  definite  declaration  upon  this  subject  which  has  ever 
foxmd  place  in  any  political  platform: 


298  APPENDIX  VI 

"The reform  of  the  civil  service,  auspiciously  begun  under  a  Republican 
administration,  should  be  completed  by  the  further  extension  of  the 
reform  system  already  established  by  law  to  all  grades  of  the  service  to 
which  it  is  applicable.  The  spirit  and  purpose  of  reform  should  be  ob- 
served in  all  executive  appointments.  All  laws  at  variance  with  the  ob- 
jects of  existing  reform  legislation  should  be  repealed  to  the  end  that  the 
dangers  to  free  institutions  which  lurk  in  the  power  of  official  patronage 
may  be  wisely  and  eflFectively  avoided." 

Here  there  was  nothing  left  out  and  there  was  no  ambiguity.  It  was  the 
particular  reform  begun  by  the  federal  civil  service  law  which  should  be 
extended.  The  language  was  so  certain  that  it  would  not  be  difficult  for  an 
honest  and  candid  man  to  determine  by  fair  and  just  construction  what  it 
meant  in  any  given  case,  either  within  the  classified  service  or  elsewhere. 

The  Democratic  platform  of  1884,  on  the  other  hand,  was  distinctly 
weaker  than  several  of  its  predecessors.  All  that  it  said  was,  "We  favor 
honest  civil  service  reform."  Now,  civil  service  reform  with  an  ad- 
jective is  an  object  of  suspicion.  The  qualification  indicates  something 
different  from  the  thing  already  set  on  foot.  There  is  no  spoilsman,  no 
party  hack,  who  does  not  vociferously  proclaim  his  devotion  to  honest  civil 
service  reform,  real  civil  service  reform,  genuine  civil  service  reform — 
indeed,  any  kind  of  a  variation  from  the  imqualified  thing  to  which  this 
National  League  is  devoted.  That  single  phrase  was  all  that  the  new 
Democratic  President  could  adduce  in  support  of  his  efforts. 

Upon  the  face  of  the  platforms  the  Republican  party  would  have  been 
entitled  to  the  undivided  support  of  all  reformers.  But  the  candidates 
were  Mr.  Blaine  and  Mr.  Cleveland.  Mr.  Blaine  said  many  good  things  in 
his  letter  of  acceptance.  If  the  mere  declarations  of  the  platform  and 
candidate  had  been  conclusive,  the  election  of  Mr.  Blaine  should  certainly 
have  been  satisfactory  to  civil  service  reformers.  But  there  was  a  large 
nimiber  of  men  devoted  to  this  cause  who  deeply  distrusted  the  Republican 
candidate.  Although  many  supported  him,  yet  others,  and  some  of  the 
most  eminent,  preferred  a  man  who,  upon  a  weaker  platform  and  with  a 
declaration  less  explicit,  gave,  as  they  believed,  better  assurances  in  his 
past  record.  These  were  the  words  in  which  Mr.  Cleveland  accepted  the 
nomination: 

"The  selection  and  retention  of  subordinates  in  government  employment 
should  depend  upon  their  ascertained  fitness  and  the  value  of  their  work, 
and  they  should  be  neither  expected  nor  allowed  to  do  questionable  party 
service." 

This  was  but  one  of  many  declarations  then  made  by  Mr.  Cleveland  in 
favor  of  civil  service  reform.  He  was  far  in  advance  of  his  party  and  for 
some  time  he  resisted  with  firmness  the  importimities  of  spoilsmen.  Yet  • 
as  time  went  on  and  pressure  was  continued  there  were  serious  breaches 
made  in  the  defenses.  He  promised  the  enforcement  of  the  Pendleton  law ; 
yet  in  Indiana,  in  Maryland,  in  Chicago,  in  the  Philadelphia  post  office,  and 


APPENDIX  VI  299 

in  other  conspicuous  instances,  that  law  was  signally  evaded  and  nullified. 
He  declared  that  removals  would  not  be  made  on  partisan  groimds  during 
the  terms  for  which  the  incumbents  were  appointed ;  yet  the  displacement 
of  such  employees  to  make  room  for  Democrats  was  well-nigh  universal. 
Thousands  were  removed  upon  secret  charges,  which  were  not  seldom 
false,  preferred  often  by  irresponsible  and  interested  parties,  and  these  men 
were  so  dismissed  without  opportimity  for  defense,  denial,  or  explanation. 
Officials  should  be  taught,  he  said,  that  efficiency,  fitness,  and  devotion  to 
public  duty  were  the  conditions  of  their  continuance  in  office.  Yet  the 
offices  were  largely  filled  by  the  imscrupulous  politicians  whom  he  had 
himself  denoimced.  RepubHcans  forfeited  their  places  for  offensive  parti- 
sanship, yet  ofi"ensive  Democratic  partisans  were  retained.  Places  were 
given  out  as  the  booty  of  Congressmen  in  disregard  of  fitness,  and  federal 
officeholders  continued  to  manipulate  conventions.  Some  few  extensions 
of  the  classified  service  were  made  during  Mr.  Cleveland's  term,  yet  it  was 
not  until  he  had  been  defeated  in  the  election  of  1888  that  a  really  important 
extension  was  made  by  him — that  which  included  the  railway  mail  service, 
embracing  some  six  thousand  employees. 

In  1888,  when  the  Democratic  party  was  in  power,  the  Democratic  plat- 
form was  practically  silent.  It  merely  affirmed  the  very  debatable 
proposition  that  honest  reform  in  the  civil  service  had  been  inaugurated 
and  maintained  by  President  Cleveland. 

In  that  year  the  Republicans,  as  we  all  remember,  repeated  the  admirable 
declaration  of  1884,  with  the  vituperative  addition  that  the  Mugwumps 
had  deserted  pretty  much  everything  that  was  good  and  especially  civil 
service  reform,  and  with  the  tautological  assurance,  "We  will  not  fail  to 
keep  our  pledges  because  they  have  broken  theirs  or  because  their  candidate 
has  broken  his. "  Subsequent  events  would  indicate  that  in  this,  the  party 
did  "protest  too  much,"  and  doubts  may  well  be  entertained  whether 
an  agreement  not  to  break  one's  word  adds  to  the  value  of  the  original 
promise. 

Four  years  ago,  at  the  conference  in  Baltimore,  I  took  occasion  to  discuss 
the  meaning  of  the  promises  then  made  and  what  we  might  expect  in  the 
fulfillment  of  them.  As  a  matter  of  the  construction  of  plain  English  words 
there  could  be  little  doubt  as  to  their  interpretation.  As  a  matter  of  pro- 
phecy, the  accuracy  of  my  conclusions  was  not  supernatural.  According 
to  the  platform  the  reform  was  to  be  extended  to  all  grades  of  the  service 
to  which  it  was  applicable.  It  was  applicable  to  post  offices  and  custom 
houses  having  less  than  twenty-five  employees.  The  law  itself  said  that, 
yet  the  President  extended  it  to  no  such  custom  houses  and  to  no  such  post 
offices  until  after  he  had  been  defeated  for  reelection.  It  was  appUcable 
to  the  Census  Bureau  yet  the  President  refused  so  to  extend  it.  It  was 
applicable  to  the  entire  labor  service  of  the  government,  Massachusetts 
has  demonstrated  that,  yet  with  one  very  honorable  exception  in  the  navy 
yards — which,  however,  have  not  yet  been  embraced  with  the  civil  service 


300  APPENDIX  VI 

rules — ^the  President  failed  to  extend  to  any  part  of  this  service  the  prin- 
ciples of  classification. 

Mr.  Harrison  said  the  law  should  have  the  aid  of  a  friendly  interpre- 
tation and  be  faithfully  enforced;  yet  political  assessments  went  on  in  vio- 
lation of  law  at  Baltimore  and  elsewhere,  unreproved  and  unpunished,  over 
the  protests  of  the  President's  own  Commissioners.  The  spirit  and  pur- 
pose of  reform  were  to  be  observed  in  all  executive  appointments,  "fitness, 
and  not  party  service,  was  to  be  the  essential  and  discriminating  test,  fidel- 
ity and  efficiency  the  only  sure  teniu-e  of  office,  and  only  the  interests  of 
the  public  service  should  suggest  removals, "  yet  Mr.  Clarkson's  guillotine 
ran  at  a  speed  unexampled  in  history.  Such  names  as  David  Martin, 
Governor  Warmouth,  and  Stephen  B.  Elkins  showed  the  wide  range  of 
that  "fitness"  which  was  the  essential  test,  and  the  presence  of  the  place- 
holders at  Minneapolis  the  kind  of  fidelity  and  efficiency  which  gave  sure 
tenure  to  office. 

The  workmen  in  the  navy  yards  and  a  few  hundred  places  in  the  Indian 
service  and  under  the  Fish  Commission  were  all  that  Mr.  Harrison  gave  us 
in  fulfillment  of  his  extensive  engagements  until  after  the  election  of  1892. 
It  is  when  an  administration  is  in  extremis  that  its  heart  turns  toward 
reform.  It  was  amid  disheartening  surroundings  in  1883  that  the  Republi- 
can party  favored  the  enactment  of  the  civil  service  law.  It  was  after 
his  defeat  in  1888  that  Mr.  Cleveland  classified  the  railway  mail  service. 
It  was  after  the  writ  of  ejectment  was  served  last  November  that  President 
Harrison  included  all  free  dehvery  offices. 

Our  chief  executives  are  not  wholly  unlike  that  other  distinguished 
ruler  with  whom  the  affliction  of  disease  was  a  condition  precedent  to  his 
desire  to  assume  the  sacerdotal  office.  In  a  civil  service  reform  sense  it 
may  be  said  of  more  than  one  of  our  Presidents  that  nothing  in  his  official 
life  became  him  like  the  leaving  of  it.  The  retiring  administration  resembles 
the  swan:  it  sings  the  sweetest  in  the  hour  of  its  passing.  And  so  may  it 
continue  to  be  until  the  time  when  it  shall  be  no  longer  necessary  for  the 
people  to  decree  the  death  of  the  singer  before  they  can  hope  to  listen  to 
the  music. 

In  the  last  campaign  the  respective  situations  of  the  two  parties  were  re- 
versed. It  was  the  Republicans  who  were  stricken  dimib  by  the  paralysis  of 
office-holding ;  it  was  the  Democracy  which  lifted  up  its  voice  like  one  crying 
in  the  wilderness.  For  it  is  with  parties  as  with  Presidents — there  is  no 
greater  incentive  to  the  cultiire  of  self-sacrificing  patriotism  than  exclusion 
from  the  table  of  patronage.  Public  virtue  resides  principally  in  the  party 
out  of  power.  "Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity."  It  is  sorrow  that 
chastens  and  purifies  the  soul. 

It  is  largely  in  recognition  of  this  fact  that  Indiana  civil  service  reform- 
ers are  so  often  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  opposition.  We  want  to  be  in  the 
company  of  those  who  stand  most  for  political  rectitude. 

But  to  return  to  the  platforms  of  1892.    In  the  RepubHcan  convention 


APPENDIX  VI  301 

Mr.  Foraker  was  chairman  of  the  platform  committee.  Under  such  mid- 
wifery it  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the  declaration  in  favor  of  civil 
service  reform  should  be  lusty  or  stalwart.  It  merely  expressed  the  con- 
tentment of  those  who  held  the  places,  who  did  not  wish  to  be  annoyed 
with  the  fanaticism  of  impracticable  reformers:  "We  commend  the  spirit 
and  evidence  of  reform  in  the  civil  service  and  the  wise  and  consistent 
enforcement  by  the  Republican  party  of  the  laws  regulating  the  same. " 

It  was  the  exiled  Democracy  that  could  see  much  more  clearly  that  things 
were  not  going  on  as  they  ought  to  go.  And  as  theirs  is  the  platform 
intended  for  the  guidance  of  the  present  administration,  it  will  be  well  for 
us  to  consider,  somewhat  in  detail,  the  meaning  of  its  language,  and  what 
we  have  a  right  to  expect  from  a  fair  reading  of  its  terms  taken  in  connection 
with  the  declarations  of  Mr.  Cleveland  since  it  was  adopted.  I  will  premise 
that  this  is  not  done  in  any  spirit  of  prophecy.  We  have  had  both  words 
and  acts  from  the  same  sources  before,  and  we  know  that  they  have  not 
always  kept  step  together. 

The  outlook  in  retrospect  is  not  always  so  comforting  as  that  which  fancy 
pictures  for  the  future.  "Retrospect, "  as  President  Harrison  informed  us, 
"  will  be  a  safer  basis  of  judgment  than  promises. " 

The  question  is  simply  this:  What  have  we  the  right  to  expect  from  the 
platform?  "Public  office,"  it  says,  "is  a  public  trust."  If  it  be  this,  it 
cannot  be  used  to  pay  personal  or  party  debts.  It  can  neither  be  made  a 
family  perquisite,  nor  a  fund  for  the  reward  of  those  who  have  rendered 
efficient  service  in  conventions  and  campaigns.  It  is  the  administration  of 
the  office  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  which  must  alone  be  considered, 
otherwise  the  trust  will  not  be  performed.  A  trustee  cannot  deal  either 
personally  or  as  a  member  of  a  firm  or  corporation  with  the  trust  property. 
A  President  cannot  so  deal  with  the  offices  either  for  himself  or  for  his 
party. 

"We  reaffirm, "  so  says  the  platform,  "the  declaration  of  the  Democratic 
National  Convention  of  1876  for  the  reform  of  the  civil  service,  and  we 
call  for  the  honest  enforcement  of  all  laws  regulating  the  same."  The 
enforcement  of  such  laws  cannot  be  expected  if  men  who  have  the  appoint- 
ing power  in  the  classified  service  are  themselves  imfriendly  to  the  law, 
and,  like  the  late  Aquilla  Jones,  say  that  they  "despise  it. "  The  law  can- 
not be  enforced  unless  the  Commissioners  are  men  of  unflinching  integrity, 
earnest  purpose,  ability,  energy,  and  enthusiasm.  But  this  is  not  enough. 
The  law  cannot  be  enforced  if  other  officers  of  the  government  fail  to  do 
their  duty  in  regard  to  it.  It  cannot  be  enforced  if  the  Department  of 
Justice  fail  to  prosecute  those  who  violate  its  penal  provisions.  It  cannot 
be  enforced  if  Cabinet  officers,  heads  of  divisions,  postmasters,  collectors, 
and  all  other  officers  in  charge  of  classified  subordinates  fail  to  remove  the 
men  who  violate  it.  If  the  Postmaster- General  and  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  should,  like  their  predecessors,  retain  in  service  men  who  by  their 
own  confession  are  guilty  of  collecting  prohibited  political  assessments,  it 


302  APPENDIX  VI 

cannot  be  enforced.    The  party  has  promised,  then,  that  this  thing  will  not 
be  done. 

The  platform  of  1876,  referred  to  in  these  resolutions,  declares,  "Reform 
is  necessary  in  the  civil  service;  experience  proves  that  efficient,  economi- 
cal conduct  of  the  government  business  is  not  possible  if  the  civil  service 
be  subject  to  change  in  every  election,  be  a  prize  fought  for  at  the  ballot- 
box,  be  a  brief  reward  of  party  zeal,  instead  of  posts  of  honor,  assigned  for 
proved  competency  and  held  for  fidelity  in  the  public  employ."  We  are 
therefore  to  have  no  "clean  sweep. "  The  civil  service  is  not  to  be  subject 
to  change  as  the  mere  result  of  the  election,  and  we  are  no  longer  to  see  the 
participants  in  the  political  contest  rewarded  by  the  offices.  That  is  what 
the  platform  means.  These  places  are  to  be  posts  of  honor  assigned  for 
proved  competency.  How  shall  this  competency  be  proven?  Within  the 
classified  service  by  examinations  and  probation;  and  outside  of  that 
service  is  there  any  better  proof  than  experience?  And  yet  we  find 
that  the  President  looks  with  disfavor  upon  applications  of  persons  who 
held  office  under  his  former  administration  for  reappointment  to  their  old 
places.  No  doubt  in  some  cases  this  disfavor  is  justified.  But  is  not  the 
rule  which  excludes  the  good  as  well  as  the  bad  rather  inconsistent  with  the 
platform?  The  declaration  goes  further;  the  place  must  not  only  be 
assigned  for  proved  competency,  but  must  be  held  for  fidelity.  If  this 
rule  is  observed,  no  man  who  has  been  thoroughly  faithful  to  his  trust  will 
be  removed  or  supplanted.  There  is  no  question  of  any  four-years  term  in 
this;  fidelity  is  to  be  the  criterion  of  retention. 

The  platform  of  1876  says  something  even  more  important:  "The  dis- 
pensing of  patronage  should  neither  be  a  tax  upon  the  time  of  our  public 
men  nor  the  instrument  of  their  ambition. "  If  this  be  carried  out  in  letter 
and  spirit,  Democratic  Congressmen  can  no  longer  seek  reelection  by 
apportioning  federal  offices  in  their  respective  districts.  The  Postmaster- 
General  will  no  longer  regard  as  conclusive  the  recommendation  of  a  Con- 
gressman, nor  indeed  as  valuable  in  any  other  sense  than  as  giving  infor- 
mation of  the  qualifications  of  the  man  to  be  appointed.  The  domain  of 
public  office  is  no  longer  to  be  held  upon  feudal  tenures  by  the  congressional 
barons  and  divided  among  their  henchmen.  It  is  no  longer  to  be  a  tax 
upon  the  time  of  Representatives  in  Congress  nor  the  instrument  of  their 
ambition.  When  patronage  shall  be  aboHshed  as  completely  as  this  plat- 
form calls  for,  we  shall  have  passed  the  turning  point  in  civil  service 
reform. 

But,  even  thus  early  in  the  administration,  the  proof  multiplies  that  this 
obligation  is  little  regarded.  The  President  and  the  members  of  the  Cabi- 
net are  spending  most  of  their  time  with  the  office  seekers.  Congressmen 
belabor  them  with  importtmities,  bringing  in  applicants  in  droves  and  pla- 
toons, twenty  at  a  time.  The  fourth-class  post  offices  are  being  filled  at  the 
rate  of  thirty  thousand  a  year.  There  have  been  one  or  two  trifling  mis- 
understandings between  Congressmen  and  Mr.  Maxwell,  but  as  a  rule,  the 


APPENDIX  VI  303 

Congressmen  have  had  their  way.  They  are  as  busy  in  the  distribution  of 
offices  as  ever.  Postmasters  must  be  faithful  to  their  trust,  but  not  for 
more  than  four  years.  At  the  eiid  of  that  time,  good  or  bad,  they  go.  Still 
there  is  some  gain  in  this. 

We  all  know  that  mistakes  will  be  made  even  by  the  best  of  adminis- 
trations. The  great  difficulty  here  is  not  the  occasional  error,  but  the 
sjpstem  resorted  to  which  gives  rise  to  this  error.  Except  for  political 
reasons  no  man  in  his  senses  would  consider  that  Daniel  W.  Voorhees  is  of 
all  men  in  Indiana  best  fitted  to  give  testimony  as  to  the  qualifications  for 
office  of  Indiana  citizens.  And  this  has  manifestly  been  the  source  from 
which  a  number  of  such  appointments  came. 

We  now  come  to  the  declaration  of  the  platform  of  1892  which  refers  to 
the  Minneapolis  convention  as  an  object  lesson  of  the  evils  of  the  spoils 
system:  "The  nomination  of  the  President  as  in  the  recent  Republican 
convention,  by  delegations  composed  largely  of  his  appointees  holding 
office  at  his  pleasure,  is  a  scandalous  satire  upon  our  free  institutions  and 
a  startling  illustration  of  the  methods  by  which  a  President  may  gratify 
his  ambition. " 

These  words  necessarily  imply  that  the  Democratic  party  will  not  repeat 
such  a  precedent.  But  the  platform  goes  further:  "We  denounce  a  policy 
imder  which  federal  officeholders  usurp  the  control  of  party  conventions  in 
the  States. "  This  has  been  done  from  time  almost  immemorial  under  both 
parties.  The  Democracy  assures  us  by  its  denimciation  that  it  is  now  to 
cease.  Officeholders  shall  no  longer  renominate  the  Congressmen  to  whom 
they  owe  their  places.  Yet,  if  this  is  not  to  be  done,  why  are  Democratic 
Congressmen  bestirring  themselves  in  such  wearisome  fashion  to  get  places 
for  the  men  who  have  already  aided  them  ? 

The  platform  closes  as  follows:  "We  pledge  the  Democratic  party  to  the 
reform  of  these  and  all  other  abuses  which  threaten  individual  Hberty  and 
local  self-government."  This  contract  is  a  pretty  large  one.  When  the 
party  shall  have  performed  it,  the  party  will  have  deserved  well  of  the 
Republic. 

The  platform,  if  fairly  carried  out,  means  a  great  deal.  It  means  prob- 
ably much  more  than  many  of  those  who  voted  for  it  intended.  Many  who 
supported  it  will  no  doubt  be  found  foremost  in  the  attempt  to  overturn  its 
promises.  It  was  on  the  whole  a  better  platform  than  many  of  us  expected, 
and  yet  it  is  decidedly  inferior  to  the  RepubHcan  declarations  of  1884  and 
1888.  It  does  not  specifi  cally  demand  the  extension  of  the  classified  system . 
It  does  not  directly  require  a  repeal  of  the  four-years  term  of  ofi&ce.  Its 
most  important  propositions  were  embodied  by  mere  reference  to  the 
platform  of  1876.  Many  who  voted  for  it  were  no  doubt  ignorant  of  the 
precise  nature  of  the  promises  they  were  supporting.  They  were  wilhng 
to  endorse  what  a  previous  Democratic  convention  had  done,  even  if  they 
did  not  know  exactly  what  that  was.  It  is  by  necessary  inference  rather 
than  by  direct  allegation  that  the  most  important  parts  of  this  platform 


304  APPENDIX  VI 

are  valuable.  The  Democracy  could  not  have  offered  a  more  stinging 
criticism  upon  the  conduct  of  their  opponents  than  to  have  repeated 
ipsissimis  verbis  the  declarations  of  1884  and  1888.  They  did  something 
less  than  this,  but  still  enough,  under  fair  construction,  to  give  an  immense 
impetus  to  the  reform. 

But  more  valuable  than  the  platform  expressions,  the  Democratic  party 
has  elected  a  President  who,  in  spite  of  very  great  previous  shortcomings, 
has  still  shown  a  strong  desire  and  no  small  amount  of  persistent  energy 
on  behalf  of  a  reformed  civil  service.  In  his  previous  administration  he 
withstood  for  a  long  time  a  pressure  which  few  would  have  resisted  so  well. 
In  spite  of  much  inconsistent  conduct  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  personal 
sentiments  of  both  of  the  last  Presidents  were  friendly,  or  that,  if  left 
entirely  alone,  they  would  have  done  much  more  than  they  did  do  on  be- 
half of  civil  service  reform.  The  immediate  influences  upon  a  President  are 
immensely  strong  in  favor  of  the  spoils  system.  The  pressure  for  place 
among  those  who  throng  the  antechambers  of  the  White  House  is  calcu- 
lated to  shut  out  a  fair  view  of  the  general  perspective  of  public  opinion 
beyond. 

President  Cleveland  in  his  present  term,  reelected  after  defeat  and  with 
no  hope  of  future  renomination,  has  great  advantages.  He  cannot  be 
unconscious  of  the  fact  that  his  great  strength  with  the  people  is  due  more 
to  his  resistance  to  the  spoilsmen  than  to  his  concessions  to  them.  No- 
where was  his  consciousness  of  this  more  clearly  portrayed  than  in  his  con- 
duct at  the  Tammany  banquet  when,  in  the  midst  of  a  campaign,  he  refused 
to  make  any  pledges  in  regard  to  the  distribution  of  the  patronage.  He 
never  did  anything  which  more  strengthened  him  with  the  people  of  this 
coimtry.  He  can  hardly  fail  to  remember  that  the  successful  campaigns  of 
the  Democratic  party  were  the  campaigns  in  which  it  had  given  the  strong- 
est assurances  of  civil  service  reform.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  safe 
to  believe  that  although  the  promises  of  the  platform  will  not  be  wholly  ful- 
filled yet  much  will  be  done  to  remove  portions  of  the  pubHc  service  from 
the  patronage  system  which  has  dishonored  oiu:  institutions.  Maxwell, 
the  logical  successor  of  Clarkson,  is  still  hard  at  work,  but  the  removals  are 
not  quite  half  so  nimierous  as  they  were  four  years  ago.  No  raiser  of 
campaign  funds  has  yet  received  the  recognition  of  a  Cabinet  appointment. 
There  is  strong  reason  to  believe  that  when  the  time  is  ripe  the  classified 
service  will  be  extended.  Secrecy,  which  for  a  moment  threatened  to 
obsciire  changes  in  the  Post  Office  Department,  was  speedil}'"  discarded. 
Removal  on  ex-parte  charges  that  the  public  were  not  permitted  to  see  or 
know  was  perhaps  one  of  the  very  greatest  of  the  abuses  in  Mr.  Cleve- 
land's former  administration.  It  has  not  ceased,  but  has  been  confined  to 
smaller  places  only.  Wherever  it  appears,  and  under  whatever  circimi- 
stances,  it  is  a  crying  evil  which  demands  redress.  There  can  be  no  just 
removal  upon  any  charges  which  the  accused  is  not  permitted  to  see.  In 
all  these  matters  public  opinion,  to  which,  if  it  be  just  and  impartial,  Mr. 


APPENDIX  VI  305 

Cleveland  is  responsive,  should  be  set  to  work.  His  friends  should  be  as 
fearless  in  criticism  as  his  antagonists.  They  have,  I  think,  not  always 
been  so.  As  civil  service  reformers  it  is  our  duty  to  be  as  free  from  the  cult 
or  worship  of  any  man  as  from  that  of  any  political  organization. 

Such  are  the  declarations  of  the  several  parties  and  their  candidates 
since  the  day  when  civil  service  reform  was  first  talked  of  down  to  the 
date  of  these  presents.  Performance,  as  yet,  does  not  wholly  keep  step 
with  promises.  It  is  a  little  like  the  clock  for  which  its  owner  apologized 
by  saying,  "It  is  a  good  clock  if  you  only  understand  it.  When  it  strikes 
ten  and  the  hands  point  to  three,  then  you  may  know  that  it  is  a  quarter 
past  seven. "  But,  whether  the  clock  be  fast  or  slow,  time  advances  surely 
and  constantly.  And  so  does  civil  service  reform.  Because  parties  have 
not  lived  up  to  their  platforms  will  it  do  to  say  that  these  are  meaningless? 
The  general  advance  shows  that  there  is  a  deep  meaning  in  them.  Plat- 
forms have  outgrown  the  period  of  hostility  and  indifference,  and,  in  re- 
sponse to  the  force  of  public  sentiment,  parties  are  willing  to  promise  any- 
thing, often  more  than  they  can  perform. 

Because  Presidents  have  failed  to  live  up  to  their  own  standards  of  duty, 
must  we,  therefore,  believe  that  reform  itself  has  faltered?  Its  growth 
has  been  constant  and  irresistible,  and  in  the  old,  illogical,  practical  Anglo- 
Saxon  way,  by  compromise.  Each  President  has  made  a  compromise  with 
Satan  by  which  Satan  has  lost  a  little  territory.  Let  this  go  on  long  enough 
and  the  Satan  of  spoils  politics  will  not  have  an  acre  left.  The  growth  has 
perhaps  been  more  healthy  because  it  has  not  been  too  fast.  It  has  followed 
the  analogies  of  nature:  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  and  after  that  the  full 
com  in  the  ear.  The  best  work  of  humanity  has  been  done  in  just  this  way. 
So  it  was  with  slavery:  first  exclusion  from  the  Territories,  next  the  procla- 
mation, then  the  Constitutional  amendment. 

The  important  thing  for  us  is  to  observe  what  have  been  the  lines  of  this 
growth.  Nearly  all  the  progress  we  can  see  and  measure  has  come  about 
through  the  classified  service.  This  began  with  about  fifteen  thousand 
places,  now  considerably  more  than  forty  thousand  are  embraced  in  it.  It 
has  twice  received  most  valuable  bequests  from  the  last  wills  and  testaments 
of  departing  administrations.  To  the  extension  of  this  system  should 
our  efforts  be  chiefly  directed. 

John  and  Maria  were  crossing  a  stream.  The  current  was  swift  and  the 
ford  was  deep.  John  drove  a  strong  bay  horse  and  a  little  sorrel  mare.  The 
sorrel  lagged  behind  and  he  belabored  her  with  useless  blows.  Maria  took 
him  by  the  shotdder.  ' '  John, ' '  she  said,  * '  whip  the  strong  horse. ' '  He  did 
so  and  they  reached  the  bank.  Let  us  whip  the  strong  horse.  Let  us  urge 
forward  the  classified  service. 


APPENDIX  VII 

ARE   PRESIDENTIAL  APPOINTMENTS   FOR   SALE  ?' 

Among  the  supporters  of  Mr.  Cleveland  last  year,  there  was  no  one  whose 
influence  was  more  potent  and  valuable  than  Mr.  Whitney,  formerly 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  Mr.  Cleveland's  warm  personal  friend.  Dur- 
ing the  campaign,  Mr.  J.  J.  Van  Alen,  a  gentleman  of  large  fortune,  whom 
Mr.  Whitney  "knew  very  well,"  contributed  some  fifty  thousand  dollars 
to  the  Democratic  ftmd,  and  after  Mr.  Cleveland's  election  he  promptly 
applied  for  the  office  of  Minister  to  Italy.  Mr.  Van  Alen  was  without 
experience  in  public  affairs.  He  had  not  been  distinguished  in  politics, 
letters,  or  diplomacy.  As  early  as  April  last,  it  was  known  to  some  of 
Mr.  Cleveland's  best  friends  that  Mr.  Van  Alen  had  given  this  money  and 
wanted  this  place,  and  the  President  was  warned  of  the  scandal  which 
would  follow  such  an  appointment.  This  was  then  tmderstood  to  be 
"Mr.  Whitney's  one  request  of  the  administration."  On  Jime  20th, 
Mr.  Whitney  confirmed  the  fact  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Cleveland.  "This,  as 
you  know,"  he  wrote,  "is  the  first  time  you  have  been  approached  by  me 
on  the  subject  of  appointments. "  Mr.  Whitney  reserves  himself  for  great 
occasions.  After  some  delay,  and  with  apparent  reluctance,  the  nomi- 
nation was  sent  to  the  Senate  and  confirmed. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  transaction?  Why  did  Mr.  Van  Alen 
give  the  money?  Why  was  he  appointed?  Men  do  not  contribute  fifty 
thousand  dollars  for  nothing.  This  money  might  have  been  given  "freely 
and  from  an  interest  in  the  success  of  the  party, "  as  Mr.  Whitney  puts  it, 
or  it  might  have  been  given  with  the  expectation  of  some  personal  return. 
If  it  were  contributed  imselfishly,  Mr.  Van  Alen's  devotion  to  his  party  is 
very  great,  so  great  that  we  cannot  but  wonder  why  he  should  so  soon  ask 
for  an  ofifice,  the  giving  of  which  would  bring  scandal  upon  the  party  "  whose 
success  he  so  earnestly  desired,"  and  why  he  should  not,  as  unselfishly, 
relieve  the  President  of  embarrassment  by  withdrawing  his  claim  after  that 
scandal  had  become  current.  Such  sums  are  not  given  from  disinterested 
motives  if  followed  at  once  by  personal  claims.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  form  of  the  words  or  the  silence  which  accompanied  the  gift,  Mr.  Van 
Alen  expected  its  equivalent.  He  gave  the  money  because  he  looked  for 
the  office. 

« Reprinted  from  the  Forum,  December,  1893. 

306 


APPENDIX  VII  307 

And  the  conclusion  is  irresistible,  that  he  got  the  office  because  he  gave 
the  money.  There  was  some  reason  for  the  appointment.  What  was  it? 
Was  it  the  eminent  services  of  Mr.  Van  Alen?  He  was  unknown  to  public 
life.  Was  it  his  fitness  for  the  place?  What  is  it  that  qualifies  a  man  for 
the  post  of  foreign  minister  ?  What  must  he  do  ?  In  the  first  place  he  must 
represent  his  country.  He  must  stand  for  America  in  the  presence  of  the 
world.  He  must  illustrate  republican  government,  as  Franklin  did  at  the 
court  of  France.  To  do  this  he  must  understand  and  love  the  institutions  of 
his  country.  He  must  be  able  to  show  their  excellence  as  James  Russell 
Lowell  did  in  his  admirable  address  on  "  Democracy. "  He  must  have  the 
diplomatic  talent  to  uphold  the  interests  of  his  country  as  Charles  Francis 
Adams  did  during  our  late  war.  He  must  possess  dignity  and  courage  in 
the  midst  of  excitement  and  danger  as  Washbume  did  during  the  struggle 
between  Germany  and  France.  He  must  combine  skill  and  delicacy,  as  Mr. 
Van  Alan's  predecessor,  Albert  G.  Porter,  did  in  the  late  difficulty  occa- 
sioned by  the  riots  at  New  Orleans,  when  Baron  Fava,  the  Italian  Minister 
at  Washington,  was  hastily  recalled.  Mr.  Porter  had  Httle  experience 
when  sent  to  Rome,  but  he  had  on  many  occasions  manifested  the  diplo- 
matic talent  so  needful  in  such  emergencies.  These  are  the  qualities 
required  of  an  American  minister,  when  we  need  a  minister  at  all.  In  what 
way  had  Mr.  Van  Alen  shown  that  he  possessed  them?  If  he  had  done 
anything  to  demonstrate  his  fitness  for  this  place,  would  not  Mr.  Whitney 
in  a  letter  designed  as  a  justification  of  the  appointment,  have  given  some 
fact  in  support  of  the  opinion  that  he  was  "in  every  way  adapted  to  the 
position"?  The  conclusion  is  irresistible  that  fitness  was  not  the  ground 
of  his  selection. 

Was  he  appointed  as  a  reward  for  political  services?  If  so,  what  were 
they?    Has  anything  been  specified  except  the  fifty  thousand  dollars? 

Was  the  place  given  because  Mr.  Whitney  pressed  the  appointment, 
and  in  liquidation  of  the  President's  obligation  to  his  friend?  Very  likely. 
We  can  well  understand  that  Mr.  Whitney's  importunities  would  be  hard 
to  refuse,  especially  when  he  makes  but  one  request.  Perhaps  the  hardest 
duty  of  a  public  officer  is  to  reject,  in  the  administration  of  his  trust,  the 
claims  of  personal  gratitude.  By  no  other  channel  do  unfitness  and  incom  - 
petency  more  readily  creep  into  the  public  service.  Say,  then,  that  this 
was  the  cause.  But  the  question  still  remains.  Why  did  Mr.  Whitney 
request  this  appointment  ?  The  public  reasons  for  the  choice  were  wanting. 
His  own  letter  in  which  he  denied  that  he  had  promised  the  place  points, 
clearly  to  the  motive.  "There  is,"  wrote  Mr.  Whitney,  "additional  rea- 
son for  appointing  him,  in  that,  as  the  result  of  that  very  generous  and 
cordial  support  of  the  party  in  the  late  campaign  when  friends  were  few 
and  calls  were  great,  he  has  been  accused  of  dishonorable  bargaining." 
Can  anyone  doubt  that  Mr.  Whitney's  obligation  to  the  man  who  had  fur- 
nished fifty  thousand  dollars  "when  friends  were  few  and  calls  were  great " 
was  the  real  groimd  of  his  insistence  ?    It  makes  no  difference  whether  there 


308  APPENDIX  VII 

was  any  contract  or  not.  Instead  of  suing  in  covenant  upon  the  bond, 
Mr.  Van  Alen  brings  his  action  in  assumpsit  on  the  promise  impHed  by  the 
rendering  of  these  most  valuable  services.  And  it  is  upon  this  count  that 
judgment  is  confessed.  He  has  drawn  a  sight  draft  for  the  office  and  the 
consideration  is  fifty  thousand  dollars.  In  the  last  analysis  it  is  evident 
that  he  got  the  office  because  he  gave  the  money. 

If  this  be  so,  what  is  the  full  meaning  of  the  transaction?  It  means  that 
money,  mere  money,  will  secure  even  from  our  Chief  Executive,  one  of 
the  highest  and  most  honorable  places  in  the  gift  of  the  government.  Mr. 
Van  Alen  is  not  the  possessor  of  those  other  personal  or  political  qualities 
which  can  be  thrown  into  such  a  transaction  to  make  it  sweet.  The 
selection  cannot  be  justified  even  by  such  poor  reasons  as  were  used  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  Wanamaker  where  business  experience  and  ability  were  urged 
as  the  reason  for  his  appointment  to  a  business  office,  and  the  real  motive 
for  the  choice  was  thus  obscured.  In  the  Van  Alen  case  we  are  confronted 
with  corruption  in  its  most  naked  form.  The  President  has  told  us  that 
dollars  alone,  when  given  to  the  right  person,  at  the  right  time,  are  sufficient 
to  secure  as  high  a  place  as  that  of  Minister  to  Italy.  We  are  informed  that 
the  mission  to  Rome  is  for  sale,  and  the  President  ought  not  to  wonder  if  we 
resent  the  insult.  It  will  not  do  to  lay  this  at  the  door  of  anyone  else.  We 
cannot  relieve  the  President  upon  the  plea  of  lack  of  ordinary  information. 
He  made  this  appointment  with  his  eyes  open  and  against  the  protests  of 
his  friends ;  and  the  people,  whose  offices  are  thus  given  over  to  the  methods 
of  the  auction  mart,  must  hang  their  heads  in  shame. 

We  have  had  to  witness  a  great  many  instances  of  the  corrupt  use  of 
patronage.  Offices,  high  and  low,  have  been  divided  among  party  bosses, 
and  services,  often  discreditable,  rendered  to  political  organizations,  have 
been  rewarded  by  public  place  and  paid  for  out  of  the  treasury  of  the  State. 
We  have  seen  a  code  of  morality  which  even  in  the  army  has  become 
extinct  revived  in  times  of  peace  under  republican  government.  Our 
political  sensibilities  have  become  so  blunted  that  we  have  almost  come  to 
believe  it  right  that  the  victor  should  carry  off  the  spoils.  In  our  munici- 
palities, bargains  are  made  and  money  buys  the  place  and  we  pay  little 
heed  to  it.  Our  State  legislatures  have  been  corrupted  and  men  have  won 
their  way  through  the  power  of  the  dollar  even  to  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  But  until  very  recent  years  we  have  had  no  reason  to  believe 
that  the  sanctuary  of  our  Federal  Executive  had  been  invaded  by  the 
defiling  influence  of  gold.  It  is  this  last  step  which  indicates  only  too 
clearly  the  direction  in  which  our  political  morality  is  moving.  The 
appointments  of  Mr.  Wanamaker  and  Mr.  Van  Alen  are  two  long  steps 
downward  and  backward  towards  the  abyss  from  which  free  government 
can  never  rise.     The  descent  must  be  stopped  before  it  is  too  late. 

A  little  more  than  four  years  ago,  a  successful  Philadelphia  shopkeeper, 
upon  the  instance  of  Mr.  Quay,  Chairman  of  the  Republican  National 
Committee,  collected  a  fund  of  several  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  cam- 


APPENDIX  VII  309 

paign  purposes.  He  was  rewarded  with  the  Postmaster-Generalship  and 
the  price  for  that  office  was  then  established.  The  public  outcry  at  that 
iniquity  was  loud  and  long.  It  was  one  of  the  strongest  reasons  tu-ged 
against  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Harrison.  In  the  Democratic  Campaign  Text- 
hook  of  the  last  campaign  (page  189)  is  the  statement,  "Perhaps  the  most 
disgraceful  act  committed  by  President  Harrison  was  the  appointment  of 
Mr.  Wanamaker  as  Postmaster-General."  The  most  sinister  featiu-e 
of  the  Van  Alen  appointment  is  that  it  comes  from  the  administration  of  a 
party  pledged  to  the  reform  of  such  abuses  and  that  there  is  no  alternative 
left  to  the  voters  of  our  country  except  that  between  the  party  which  is 
responsible  for  Mr.  Wanamaker  and  the  party  which  is  responsible  for  Mr. 
Van  Alen. 

What  is  the  essential  nature  of  such  appointments?  It  is  set  forth  in 
our  text-books  upon  criminal  law.  In  Bacon's  Abridgment  (Officers  and 
Offices,  F)  we  find: 

"  The  taking  or  giving  of  a  reward  for  offices  of  a  public  nature  is  said  to 
be  bribery.  'And  surely, '  says  Hawkins,  'nothing  can  be  more  palpably 
prejudicial  to  the  good  of  the  public  than  to  have  places  of  the  highest 
concernment,  on  the  due  execution  whereof  the  happiness  of  both  king  and 
people  doth  depend,  disposed  of,  not  to  those  who  are  most  able  to  execute 
them,  but  to  those  who  are  most  able  to  pay  for  them;  nor  can  anything 
be  a  greater  discouragement  to  industry  and  virtue,  than  to  see  those  places 
of  trust  and  honour,  which  ought  to  be  the  rewards  of  those  who  by  their 
industry  and  diligence  have  qualified  themselves  for  them,  conferred  on 
those  who  have  no  other  recommendation,  but  that  of  being  the  highest 
bidders;  neither  can  anything  be  a  greater  temptation  to  officers  to  abuse 
their  power  by  bribery  and  extortion,  and  other  acts  of  injustice,  than  the 
consideration  of  the  great  expense  they  were  at  in  gaining  their  places,  and 
the  necessity  of  sometimes  straining  a  point  to  make  their  bargain  answer 
their  expectations. ' " 

This  is  quoted  by  Russell  (On  Crimes,  i.,  p.  214),  who  adds: 

"  The  buying  and  selling  of  such  offices  has  therefore  been  considered  an 
offense  malum  per  se  and  indictable  at  common  law." 

Thus  spoke  the  rugged  intellect  of  our  ancestors.  The  reasons  are  as 
soiuid  now  as  they  were  then.  The  evil  is  just  as  great,  nay  greater,  in  a 
government  of  the  people  than  in  one  of  privilege  and  rank.  Shall  it  be 
said  that  we  have  so  far  fallen  off  from  our  ideals  that  the  sale  of  such 
places  shall  pass  without  our  earnest  remonstrance?  It  is  not  pleasant 
to  think  that  our  Chief  Magistrate  has  done  a  thing  which  falls  so  close  to 
the  definition  of  the  crime  of  bribery  that  it  involves  all  the  public  injury 
and  moral  wrong  so  clearly  described  as  the  essential  quality  of  the  guilty 
act.  It  is  not  hard  to  foresee  the  consequences  of  such  a  precedent.  No 
matter  how  widespread  political  debauchery  may  become,  every  form  of  it 
always  begins  with  a  single  instance.  The  common  law  itself  is  merely 
the  accumulation  of  precedents,  **  that  wilderness  of  single  instances  "  which 


310  APPENDIX  VII 

has  grown  into  jurisprudence.  When  the  example  set  in  this  case  shall 
become  the  rule  and  it  is  known  that  money  will  buy  the  place,  that  the  big 
contributor  will  get  the  big  office,  what  will  follow? 

The  ruin  of  our  public  service  is  perhaps  the  first  and  most  palpable  result. 
No  man  who  buys  an  office  is  ever  worthy  of  it.  What  security  is  there 
that  the  purchaser  of  a  foreign  mission  will  not  be  base  enough  to  sell  his 
country?  No  man  can  fill  a  place  which  he  has  bought  without  dishonor 
to  the  land  he  represents.  The  self-respecting  American  must  blush  if  he  is 
compelled  to  meet  him.  A  diplomatic  service  is  worse  than  useless  if  it  is 
to  be  the  means  of  disseminating  this  reputation  for  our  country.  It  is  es- 
pecially himiiliating  to  reflect  that  in  the  land  where  Fabricius  rejected  the 
bribes  of  Pyrrhus,  we  are  to  have  the  living  evidence  that  our  republic  has 
taken  so  little  warning  from  the  example  of  that  which  finally  led  to  the 
decline  and  overthrow  of  the  great  republic  of  antiquity. 
'^ut  the  most  fatal  consequence  of  such  appointments  is  the  debasement 
of  the  suffrage  and  the  general  corruption  of  the  people..  There  is  strong 
reason  to  believe  that  the  money  secured  by  some  of  these  vast  campaign 
contributions  was  designed  for  this  very  purpose.  The  distribution  of 
the  funds  raised  by  Mr.  Wanamaker  among  the  "blocks  of  five"  is  an 
instance.  But  whether  this  be  so  or  not,  why  should  the  voter  who  sees 
office  bestowed  for  money  hesitate  to  take  money  for  his  vote?  Why 
should  men  love  a  country  where  gold  buys  preferment  and  where  the  great 
offices  are  confined  to  the  wealthy?  Why  should  they  die  for  it?  What 
inspiration  would  there  be  in  the  great  names  of  our  history  if  we  believed 
that  the  men  who  bore  them  were  capable  of  an  act  like  this?  Why  should 
men  seek  anything  but  gold,  if  gold  alone  is  to  open  every  avenue  of  honor? 
What  sort  of  human  beings  will  be  developed  under  such  a  regimen?  What 
other  issue  is  there  to-day  fraught  with  results  so  full  of  ultimate  peril  to 
popular  government?  The  cloud  may  seem  small  but  it  is  laden  with  bolts 
of  destruction.  Other  questions — the  tariff,  the  currency — occupy  more 
of  our  attention  but  they  are  less  vital  in  their  consequences.  We  may  not 
live  to  see  the  results  of  this  corruption,  but  it  is  a  sad  inheritance  to  leave 
to  our  children.  If  we  measure  these  things  as  they  will  be  measured  in 
history,  other  questions  which  are  so  absorbing  now  will  fade  into  nothing 
by  the  side  of  this.  We  may  cripple  our  commerce  or  our  manufactiu*es  by  a 
vicious  economical  policy,  but  the  material  resources  of  our  people  are  well- 
nigh  inexhaustible  and  we  will  soon  rally  after  temporary  discomfort. 
From  pestilence,  famine,  and  war  we  can  rise  in  renewed  strength.  It  is 
only  when  the  heart  fails,  when  public  spirit  languishes,  that  our  case  is 
indeed  desperate. 


APPENDIX  VIII 

THE  ADVANCE   OF   THE    COMPETITIVE   SYSTEM' 

The  steady  advance  made  by  the  competitive  system  in  the  federal 
civil  service  during  the  period  of  a  single  generation  has  been  quite  unique 
in  the  history  of  reform.  For  it  was  no  longer  ago  than  1867  that  the 
agitation  in  favor  of  this  system  was  first  begun  by  the  report  of  the  Hon. 
Thomas  A.  Jenckes,  of  Rhode  Island,  to  the  House  of  Representatives, 
accompanied  by  a  bill  to  regulate  the  civil  service. 

In  1 87 1,  the  first  step  was  taken  toward  reform.  An  act  was  passed 
authorizing  the  President  to  prescribe  rules  for  admission  to  the  civil  service. 
President  Grant  appointed  Mr.  George  William  Curtis,  with  six  other  gentle- 
man, as  the  first  "Advisory  Board,"  and  rules  were  adopted,  classifying 
the  service,  and  providing  for  competitive  examinations. 

But  great  opposition  soon  developed.  Congress  failed  to  make  an 
appropriation  for  the  support  of  the  Board,  and  in  1875  the  President 
abandoned  the  system. 

In  1876  President  Hayes  was  elected  upon  a  platform  containing  a 
strong  plank  advocating  civil  service  reform,  and  he  promised  in  his  letter 
of  acceptance  that  the  reform  should  be  "thorough,  radical,  and  complete. " 
In  some  departments  competitive  examinations  were  iiistituted,  notably 
in  the  Department  of  the  Interior,  where  Mr.  Carl  Schurz  had  been  ap- 
pointed Secretary,  and  in  1879  similar  examinations  were  estabhshed  in 
the  New  York  custom  house  and  the  New  York  post  office.  They  showed 
such  good  results  that  they  formed  a  valuable  object  lesson  in  advancing 
the  reform  and  in  1883  the  Pendleton  civil  service  law  was  enacted. 

There  was  on  several  occasions  afterwards  considerable  backsliding  in  the 
affection  of  Congress  for  civil  service  reform,  but  the  law  was  never  repealed 
and  under  it  gradual  extensions  of  the  classified  system  were  made  as 
times  were  ripe  for  them — the  railway  mail  service,  under  Mr.  Cleveland ; 
the  free  delivery  service,  under  President  Harrison;  pretty  much  every- 
thing left  in  the  departments  under  Mr.  Cleveland's  so-called  "blanket" 
order,  during  his  second  term;  the  PhiHppine  service  under  Mr.  McKinley; 
the  rural  free  delivery,  the  census,  the  Spanish  war  service,  as  well  as  the 

^  A  paper  read  before  the  Annual  Meeting  of  the  National  Civil  Service 
Reform  League  held  at  Baltimore,  December  10,  1903. 

311 


312  APPENDIX  VIII 

registration  of  laborers,  under  President  Roosevelt.  Some  of  these  acces- 
sions have  been  made  as  legacies  of  dying  administrations,  and  sometimes 
they  have  been  apples  of  discord  to  the  survivors.  But  with  Theodore 
Roosevelt  the  time  came  at  last  when  a  President  found  it  possible  to 
make  extensions  to  the  competitive  system  at  the  very  beginning  of  his 
official  life. 

Thus  it  is  that  in  twenty  years  the  classified  service  has  grown  nearly 
ninefold,  from  fourteen  thousand  places  when  the  law  was  passed  to  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  places  to-day,  and  that  even  outside 
the  competitive  service  comparatively  few  changes  are  made  at  the  expira- 
tion of  the  four-year  periods.  Public  opinion,  which  indulgently  acqui- 
esced in  a  clean  sweep  in  years  gone  by,  now  resents  the  dismissal  of  a  single 
postmistress  for  political  reasons.  Outside  the  consular  service  and  the 
postmasterships,  the  great  bulk  of  all  classifiable  places  is  under  the  com- 
petitive system. 

Even  our  opponents  recognize  the  conquests  we  have  made.  The  New 
York  Sun  celebrates  them  in  a  lyric  inspired  by  an  afflatus  undoubtedly 
divine,  a  lyric  which  it  calls  "The  Civil  Service  Anthem,"  or  "Song  of  the 
C.  S.  C,"  and  which  is  supposed  to  have  emanated  from  the  Commission 
itself. 

The  statement  of  the  origin  of  this  poem  may  not  be  literally  accurate, 
but,  like  other  unauthentic  documents,  it  is  historical  in  the  sense  that  it 
portrays  the  attitude  of  mind  of  the  source  from  which  it  emanates. 

Our  adversaries  attribute  to  us  a  spirit  of  jubilation  at  our  successes,  and 
they  do  well,  for  in  the  federal  service  we  have  traversed  at  least  three 
fourths  of  the  distance  from  the  starting  point  to  the  goal  of  the  utmost  pos- 
sible achievement.  While  other  reforms  still  linger  in  the  valley,  we  have 
climbed  at  least  to  the  shoulder  of  the  mountain. 

But  there  is  one  thing  we  are  beginning  to  miss ;  we  no  longer  march  to 
the  inspiring  music  furnished  by  the  yells  of  the  enemy.  The  cries  of 
"Pharisee,"  "Snivel  Service,"  and  "Emasculated  Reform,"  uttered  by  the 
virile  advocates  of  plunder,  come  more  and  more  seldom  to  our  ears.  More 
and  more  faint  grow  the  sounds  of  their  rage,  defiance,  and  despair,  until 
to-day  a  little  rattling  in  the  throat,  preceding  final  dissolution,  is  almost 
all  that  we  can  hear.  So  rare  are  the  expressions  of  reprobation  that  I 
for  one  feel  inclined  to  treasure  them  as  curiosities.  I  recall  in  particular, 
that  during  the  special  session  of  the  Senate  last  spring,  a  Senator  entered 
my  room  whose  brows  were  furrowed  by  Jovian  corrugations.  He  was 
mad  all  over.  I  asked  him  what  I  could  do  for  him.  He  answered,"! 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  this  civil  service  business  is  a  fraud. "  I 
asked  him  in  what  respect.  He  said,  "I  had  some  clerks  in  the  Census 
Office,  and  among  them  a  lady  in  whom  I  am  interested.  When  Director 
Merriam  was  about  to  make  his  dismissals,  he  told  me  I  could  keep  two, 
and  I  gave  him  the  name  of  this  clerk  with  one  other.  But  she  had  been 
ordered  to  be  vaccinated ;  she  was  not  well ;  there  was  a  noise  in  the  neighbor- 


APPENDIX  VIII  313 

hood  where  she  was  doing  her  work,  and  she  was  not  able  to  do  it  as  satis- 
factorily as  others,  and  so  she  was  dropped,  and  I  can't  get  a  place  for  her 
anywhere."  I  told  him  that  the  Census  Bureau  at  that  time  was  not 
in  the  classified  service;  and  that  for  what  was  done  the  civil  service  law 
at  least  was  not  responsible.  He  seemed  a  little  surprised  at  this  state- 
ment, then  he  began  on  a  new  tack.  He  said  that  promotions  within  the 
service  were  managed  by  a  ring  composed  of  the  heads  of  divisions;  that 
they  promoted  their  friends  and  relatives,  and  that  a  Senator  couldn't  get 
any  promotion  for  anybody.  I  asked  him  if  he  did  not  think  that  the  heads 
of  the  divisions  under  whom  the  clerks  were  working  could  judge  better  as 
to  the  respective  efficiency  of  these  clerks  than  persons  upon  the  outside. 
He  said  the  heads  of  divisions  did  not  determine  the  question  upon  efl&ciency 
at  all;  they  promoted  their  favorites.  I  asked  him  how  he  knew  this,  but 
he  did  not  tell  me,  except  that  he  knew  one  man  in  the  War  Department  who 
was  a  very  good  clerk  and  had  got  no  promotion.  I  asked  him  how  he 
could  tell  that  there  were  not  other  clerks  still  better.  He  said  that  was 
impossible;  this  clerk  was  as  good  as  any  man  could  be.  He  added  that  the 
reason  he  wanted  a  place  for  this  lady  was  because  she  came  from  his 
own  town  and  had  two  children  to  support.  The  Senator  departed  in  great 
discontent,  and  I  reflected  for  a  moment  on  the  logic  of  the  preference  he 
desired.  If  the  residence  of  the  lady  in  the  same  town  as  the  Senator  con- 
stituted a  good  reason  for  preferring  her,  such  reason  ought  to  be  applied 
to  other  cases,  and  I  was  wondering  how  much  the  efficiency  of  the  civil 
service  would  gain  by  a  regulation  providing  that  appointments  should  first 
be  given  to  ladies  residing  in  the  same  towns  as  Senators.  The  character 
of  the  logic  displayed  by  legislators  who  make  such  demands  leads  one  to 
wonder  that  our  laws  are  half  as  good  as  they  are.  I  must  not,  of  course, 
reveal  the  identity  of  the  gentleman  in  question,  yet  a  certain  natural 
association  of  ideas  leads  me  to  observe  that  he  is  now  under  indictment  for 
securing  the  appointment  of  a  postmaster  for  a  pecuniary  consideration. 

It  is  with  pardonable  pride  that  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform 
League  may  look  back  on  the  part  it  has  taken  in  this  advance  of  the  com- 
petitive system.  And  we  must  remind  our  adversaries  that  the  evils  which 
they  prophesied  have  not  attended  its  coming.  No  officeholding  aris- 
tocracy of  tide-waiters  and  letter-carriers  has  trampled  American  manhood 
tmder  its  iron  heel;  we  have  not  bent  the  knee  to  an  hereditary  sovereign  as 
the  result  of  our  adopting  so  monarchical  a  system ;  the  man  who  is  not  a 
college  graduate  has  still  some  opportunities  for  employment,  and  there  is 
still  interest  in  political  issues  and  great  public  questions,  though  the  citizen 
is  not  so  often  paid  for  this  interest  by  the  plum  of  an  office  for  which  he  is 
not  qualified.  Is  there  anyone  who  will  look  back  to-day  upon  the  clean 
sweep  made  with  each  incoming  administration  in  the  past,  and  tell  us  that 
the  adoption  of  the  competitive  system  has  not  marked  a  distinct  gain  in  our 
political  life? 

If  we  compare  the  progress  of  civil  service  reform  with  that  of  other 


314  APPENDIX  VIII 

measures  which  have  occupied  the  public  mind  during  the  same  period,  we 
can  see  how  swift  and  steady  has  been  the  advance. 

Efforts  have  been  made  to  secure  the  reform  of  our  city  governments, 
yet  after  each  attempt  the  wave  has  receded  almost  as  far  as  it  had  ad- 
vanced. 

Laws  were  passed  more  than  a  dozen  years  ago  to  prohibit  combinations 
of  capital  in  trusts  and  monopolies.  Yet  in  spite  of  these  laws  such  com- 
binations have  been  growing  in  a  greatly  accelerated  ratio. 

At  every  recurring  election  there  has  been  great  talk  of  reforms  and 
changes  in  the  tariff,  yet  the  essential  principles  of  our  tariff  legislation, 
whatever  the  difference  of  schedules,  have  been  very  little  affected. 

Repeated  political  convulsions  have  shaken  the  country  in  regard  to  the 
currency,  and  yet  the  changes  made  in  actual  legislation  have  been  trifling. 
The  mountains  have  groaned  in  labor  and  hardly  a  mouse  has  been  bom. 

Many  enthusiastic  souls  believed  that  efforts  to  substitute  arbitration  for 
war  were  reaching  a  golden  consimimation  in  the  establishment  of  the 
Hague  tribunal,  but  more  recent  events  make  it  seem  as  if  the  time  were 
almost  as  distant  now  as  when  the  prophet  spoke,  in  which  swords  should  be 
turned  into  plowshares,  and  spears  into  pruning  hooks,  in  which  nation 
should  not  take  up  arms  against  nation,  neither  should  they  learn  war  any 
more. 

In  contrast  with  these  failures  to  better  the  condition  of  the  world  the 
competitive  system  has  made  a  progress  which  is  astonishing,  and  it  has 
done  this,  although  it  has  not  been  the  leading  issue  in  any  campaign,  and 
although  it  has  not  been  supported  by  the  personal  interest  of  any  par- 
ticular group,  or  section  of  the  community.  No  vast  protected  industries 
or  labor  unions  have  ever  combined  in  its  advocacy,  no  class  even,  like  the 
disfranchised,  clamoring  for  equal  rights.  The  tongues  of  demagogues,  the 
vested  interests  of  political  patronage,  and  the  inertia  of  a  vicious  system 
long  established  were  all  against  us.  We  could  not  awaken  sympathy, 
like  the  early  abolitionists,  by  picturing  the  oppression  of  the  helpless, 
the  scourge  and  chain  and  auction  block,  the  separation  of  families,  the 
long  flight  for  liberty  across  forests  and  morasses  tmder  the  guidance  of  the 
north  star.  The  competitive  system  isto  most  persons  a  dry  and  unin- 
teresting subject;  no  vast  multitudes  assemble  to  hear  its  discussion  and 
be  swayed  by  the  passions  which  it  arouses.  Its  advocates  have  had  no 
other  motives  than  that  honest  work-a-day  patriotism  which  is  willing  to 
renoimce  the  most  brilliant  fields  of  conflict  and  victory,  and  is  content  with 
the  modest  kind  of  celebrity  which  follows  more  unobtrusive  endeavor. 
Yet  perhaps  this  very  weakness  has  been  part  of  our  strength,  for  our  good 
faith  at  least  was  impregnable,  when  even  our  adversaries  could  attribute  to 
us  no  selfish  motives. 

What  then  have  been  the  causes  of  our  phenomenal  success?  Very 
prominent,  certainly,  among  these  have  been  the  support  of  advocates  of 
eminence  and  character.     Even  before  the  competitive  plan  was  developed, 


APPENDIX  VIII  315 

the  greatest  voices  in  American  history  denounced  and  reprobated  in 
burning  words  the  evils  of  patronage.  That  trinity  of  eloquence  in  the 
golden  age  of  the  Senate,  Daniel  Webster,  Henry  Clay,  and  John  C.  Cal- 
houn, however  divergent  the  views  of  its  members  on  other  subjects,  was 
united  in  this,  that  it  saw  in  the  spoils  system,  inaugurated  by  Andrew 
Jackson,  one  of  the  gravest  dangers  to  free  institutions.  From  that  time 
on  we  have  had  at  the  service  of  our  reform,  the  tongues  and  the  pens  of 
the  ablest  in  eloquence  and  statesmanship,  that  America  has  produced.  In 
the  early  days  we  had  the  voice  of  James  A.Garfield  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, of  Carl  Schurz  in  the  Senate,  and  on  the  platform  the  incompar- 
able advocacy  of  George  William  Curtis.  His  words  as  president  of  this 
League  have  given  the  country  an  inspiration  which  has  long  outlasted  his 
life.     Listen  to-day  to  the  divine  fire  that  bums  in  his  sentences: 

"Gentlemen,  the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  Sisera.  But  they 
fight  for  us.  The  desire  of  good  government,  of  honest  politics,  of  parties 
which  shall  be  legitimate  agencies  of  great  policies ;  all  the  high  instincts  of 
good  citizenship;  all  the  lofty  impulses  of  American  patriotism,  are  the 
'sweet  influences '  that  favor  reform. 

"Sir  Philip  Sidney  wrote  to  his  brother  upon  his  travels,  'Whenever  you 
hear  of  a  good  war,  go  to  it. '  That  is  the  call  which  we  have  heard  and 
obeyed.  And  a  good  war  it  has  been,  and  is.  Everjrwhere,  indeed,  there 
are  signs  of  an  alert  and  adroit  hostility.  They  are  the  shots  of  outposts 
that  foretell  the  battle.  But  everywhere,  also,  there  are  signs  of  the 
advance  of  the  whole  line,  the  inspiring  harbingers  of  victory.  Never  was 
the  prospect  fairer.  If  the  shadows  still  linger,  the  dawn  is  deepening — 
the  dawn  that  announces  oiu*  sun  of  Austerlitz. " 

We  have  also  been  favored  by  the  pen  of  a  distinguished  statesman. 
The  work  on  the  "  Civil  Service  of  Great  Britain, "  by  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  is 
as  convincing  a  treatise,  from  a  practical  standpoint,  as  was  ever  issued  in 
support  of  a  great  public  measure. 

Another  powerful  influence  which  has  wrought  in  favor  of  the  reform  is 
that  of  the  press.  While  there  have  been  dissenting  opinions,  the  judg- 
ment of  the  court  of  journalism  has  been  delivered  with  greater  imanimity 
in  our  favor  than  upon  any  other  subject  that  I  know.  So  overwhelming, 
indeed,  is  the  sentiment  to-day  that  an  article,  recently  appearing  in  a 
Chicago  paper,  in  favor  of  returning  to  the  patronage  system  seemed, 
indeed,  like  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  but  without  hope  of 
preparing  the  way  for  its  gospel  of  demoralization. 

Not  only  has  the  competitive  system  had  eloquent  advocates,  but  it  has 
had  most  skillful  artificers.  The  men  who  framed  the  Federal  Civil  Service 
Act  created  a  mechanism  of  marvelous  adaptability  and  efficiency  for 
accomplishing  the  end  they  had  in  view.  I  regard  that  act  as  one  of  the 
most  skillfully  devised  statutes  ever  passed  by  a  legislative  body.  Twenty 
years  have  now  elapsed  since  the  law  was  enacted,  and  except  for  the  limi- 
tations excluding  laborers  and  oflScers  confirmed  by  the  Senate  from  its 


3i6  APPENDIX  VIII 

provisions,  I  do  not  know  a  single  particular  in  which  I  greatly  care  to  see 
it  amended.  Even  the  reform  can  go  on  without  further  legislative  ac- 
tion. In  these  respects  beauty  of  the  law  is  that  it  contains  within  itself 
provisions  for  the  growth  of  the  competitive  system  by  mere  act  of  the 
President  and  the  Commission  without  further  congressional  enactment. 
In  some  respects  it  adapts  itself  even  better  to  the  conditions  of  the  service 
to-day  than  when  it  first  became  a  law.  For  instance,  the  provision  that 
none  but  men  in  the  civil  service  should  act  as  local  examiners  was  incon- 
venient so  long  as  these  men  were  partisans  appointed  for  partisan  reasons. 
But  now  that  the  non-partisan  character  of  the  service  has  become  general 
this  difficulty  no  longer  exists.  It  was  once  supposed  that  the  law  was 
defective  in  not  providing  for  taking  testimony  in  investigations  by  the 
Commission,  but  this  defect  was  readily  amended  by  a  recent  executive 
order.  It  was  feared  that  it  was  defective  in  not  providing  for  the  with- 
holding of  salaries  from  those  illegally  appointed;  but  all  that  was  needed 
was  a  President  willing  to  adopt  a  rule  that  such  salaries  should  not  be 
paid,  and  the  evil  disappeared  as  if  by  magic.  Some  feared  that  the  law 
was  faulty  in  that  it  did  not  provide  for  the  interposition  of  the  courts,  yet 
recent  events  have  shown  that  such  interposition  is  not  an  unmixed  blessing, 
and  that  imder  an  executive  friendly  to  the  law  the  best  administration 
may  be  had  without  outside  interference.  Indeed  there  is  very  little 
which  cannot  be  done  imder  the  present  law  by  a  President  who  is  friendly 
to  the  system.  His  limitations  are  found  rather  in  political  exigencies  and 
in  the  state  of  public  opinion  than  in  the  limitations  of  law,  or  constitu- 
tional right. 

I  say  then  that  the  law  is  a  marvel  of  legislative  skill.  The  first  rules 
adopted  by  Mr.  Dorman  B.  Eaton  and  his  fellow-commissioners  were 
framed  with  equal  sagacity.  The  work  began  modestly.  The  competitive 
system  was  applied  at  first  to  fourteen  thousand  places  only,  places  to 
which  it  was  most  evidently  appUcable,  where  scholastic  tests  seemed  so 
palpably  proper  that  little  objection  could  be  made,  places  in  the  depart- 
ments and  the  larger  offices  where  personal  selections  were  most  difficult, 
and  where  the  need  of  the  new  method  was  most  apparent.  The  sys- 
tem of  civil  service  jurisprudence,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  which  has  grown  up 
from  the  rules,  has  not  always  been  a  model  of  foresight,  clearness,  or 
condensation.  It  was  seldom  that  more  than  a  month  or  two  passed  with- 
out some  new  amendment.  The  various  changes  made  have  now  been  con- 
densed and  systematized  in  the  recent  "Justinian  code,"  framed  by  the 
Commission,  which,  as  I  learn  from  Mr.  Doyle,  has  not  needed  the  scratch 
of  a  pen  for  nearly  eight  months! 

Not  only  has  the  competitive  system  been  skillfully  devised,  but  it  has  in 
general  been  well  administered,  for  Dorman  B.  Eaton,  Governor  Thompson, 
John  R.  Proctor,  and,  most  eminent  of  all,  Theodore  Roosevelt  have  been 
Civil  Service  Commissioners.  And  there  has  been  a  peculiar  fitness  in  the 
character  of  the  leadership,  that  of  Dorman  B.  Eaton  in  the  formative 


APPENDIX  VIII  317 

period,  and  that  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  the  militant  period  of  the  reform. 

The  progress  of  the  competitive  system  in  the  federal  service  depends 
mainly  upon  the  President.  The  President's  action,  on  the  other  hand, 
must  depend  in  great  measure  upon  the  support  he  receives  from  Congress 
and  from  the  people.  Since  the  passage  of  the  civil  service  law,  our  Presi- 
dents have  all  been  personally  friendly  to  the  competitive  system,  although 
sometimes  when  they  were  overcome  by  party  pressure  there  have  been 
serious  lapses  and  wide  gaps  between  profession  and  performance. 

President  Arthur,  who  was  in  office  when  the  law  was  passed,  had  been  a 
manipulator  of  local  party  patronage,  but  throughout  his  term  he  displayed 
considerable  sympathy  with  the  new  law,  by  approving  its  provisions, 
appointing  efficient  commissioners,  and  giving  them  consistent  support. 
President  Cleveland,  a  firm  friend  of  the  merit  system,  took  office  under 
peculiar  difficulties.  The  appetite  of  his  party  for  spoils,  after  the  exclusion 
of  a  quarter  of  a  century,  was  insatiable;  he  withstood  it  bravely  in  many 
instances,  and  he  maintained  the  law  within  its  limited  field  of  operation  at 
that  time,  but  outside  the  classified  service  there  was  a  pretty  clean  sweep 
of  the  offices,  and  the  system  of  removal  on  secret  charges  of  "offensive 
partisanship  "  furnished  a  means  of  evasion  of  civil  service  reform  principles 
which  cast  a  certain  discredit  upon  the  merit  system.  President  Harrison 
entered  office  under  the  strongest  pledges  of  his  party  and  himself,  both 
to  extend  the  system  and  apply  its  principles  in  all  executive  appointments; 
he  was,  however,  much  more  subject  to  poHtical  influence  than  his  predeces- 
sor, and  the  clean  sweep  was  again  repeated.  He  made  extensions  of  the 
classified  service  it  is  true,  but  the  most  important  one  (the  free  delivery 
offices)  was  only  effected  at  the  last  moment,  after  he  had  been  defeated 
for  reelection.  President  Cleveland  in  his  second  term  did  more  for  the 
competitive  system  than  had  ever  been  accomplished  up  to  that  time, 
particularly  in  the  extensive  additions  to  the  service  made  by  him  in  his 
so-called  blanket  order,  which  became  subject  to  such  bitter  criticism  when 
the  Republicans  again  came  into  power. 

It  is  considered  by  many  that  there  was  a  retrogression  under  President 
McKinley.  The  order  which  he  made  exempting  from  examinations  some 
thousands  of  the  positions  which  had  been  included  by  Mr.  Cleveland 
was  greatly  to  be  regretted.  In  point  of  fact,  however,  the  excepted 
positions  were  not  so  numerous  as  was  supposed  at  the  time,  either  by 
the  Departments  or  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  many  of  these  places 
were  not  actually  thrown  back  into  patronage,  and  the  general  per- 
sonnel of  the  administration  was  so  favorable  to  the  merit  system  when 
President  Roosevelt  entered  upon  the  duties  of  chief  executive  that  no 
radical  changes  were  required.  And  President  McKinley  performed  the 
inestimable  service  of  initiating  the  competitive  system  in  the  Philippine 
Islands,  thus  preserving  these  dependencies  from  the  dangers  of  exploitation 
and  patronage. 

Concerning  the  present  administration,  I  have  been  so  closely  identified 


3i8  APPENDIX  VIII 

with  it,  that  I  hardly  feel  at  Hberty  to  speak.  I  may,  however,  call  your 
attention  to  the  figures  just  compiled  by  Mr.  Kiggins,  the  Chief  Examiner 
of  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  figures  which  astonished  me  beyond  mea- 
sure when  I  saw  them.  During  the  year  ending  June  30,  1902,  the  Com- 
mission had  examined  59,318  persons,  and  had  made  12,894  appointments 
to  competitive  places.  That  was  then  our  high-water  mark.  During  the 
year  ending  June  30,  1903,  109,829  persons  were  examined  and  39,646 
competitive  appointments  were  made,  more  than  three  times  as  many  as  the 
year  before.  I  had  felt  during  the  year  that  we  were  making  progress,  but 
I  had  never  dreamed  we  were  doing  half  so  well  as  that. 

If  a  tree  be  known  by  its  fruits  the  administration  of  President  Roosevelt 
must  be  pronounced  proHfic,  in  regard  to  civil  service  reform. 

The  competitive  system  has  been  fortunate  in  its  advocates,  in  its 
organizers  and  in  its  administrators,  and  in  the  friendship  of  our  Chief 
Executives,  but  it  has  been  still  more  fortunate  in  itself,  in  its  essential 
nature  and  in  the  irresistible  logic,  which  declares  its  excellence  to  every 
impartial  understanding.  The  principles  underlying  that  system  have 
been  more  completely  demonstrated  than  any  political  issue  of  the  time. 
They  are  more  conclusive  than  the  arguments  in  favor  of  protection  or 
free  trade,  of  the  gold  or  the  silver  standard,  of  imiversal  or  restricted  suf- 
frage, of  prohibition  or  license,  of  war  or  arbitration.  And  not  only  is  the 
system  impregnable  in  right  reason,  but  it  is  essentially  the  most  practical 
of  all  reforms.  It  has  vindicated  itself  by  its  results.  Where  the  competi- 
tive and  patronage  systems  existed  in  the  departments  side  by  side  the  world 
ootild  see  which  tree  produced  the  better  fruit,  and  the  competitive  system 
thrives  by  the  plain  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

But  the  question  recurs,  how  safe  are  we  to-day?  Since  the  advance 
of  the  reform  has  depended  so  largely  upon  the  will  of  the  President,  since 
the  rules  may  be  changed  or  repealed  by  executive  order,  since  every  place 
in  the  service  may  be  excepted  from  examination,  are  we  not  constantly  in 
danger  of  losing  all  we  have  gained?  The  platform  upon  which  Mr.  Bryan 
was  nominated  looked  ominous  for  civil  service  reform.  How  far  are  we 
at  the  mercy  of  an  unfriendly  administration? 

Of  course  there  is  a  risk  in  the  election  of  a  President  who  regards  the 
competitive  system  with  an  evil  eye.  But  I  beHeve  the  time  has  now 
passed  when  that  system  is  in  danger  of  total  extermination  by  execu- 
tive action.  Custom,  if  it  be  well  fixed,  is  quite  as  strong  with  us  as  law. 
The  growth  of  the  patronage  system  itself  shows  this.  The  custom  of 
party  conventions  has  nullified  even  the  constitutional  provision  for  the 
Electoral  College.  But  now  this  inertia  of  habit,  which  it  was  once  so 
hard  for  us  to  overcome,  will  be  our  ally  for  the  maintenance  of  our  reform . 
Any  President  who,  without  cause,  might  attempt  the  overthrow  of  the 
competitive  system,  would  open  such  floodgates  of  confusion  and  incom- 
petency as  would  sweep  his  administration  into  the  bottomless  abyss. 
Every  breach  made  in  the  dikes  is  bound  to  cause  him  greater  embarrass- 


APPENDIX  VIII  319 

ment  than  advantage,  and  the  law  of  political  self-preservation  can  be 
counted  upon  to  see  to  it  that  these  breaches  shall  be  few. 

But  it  is  incumbent  upon  us  to  watch  carefully  the  growth  of  our  reform, 
to  see  that  no  parasites  acctmiulate  upon  its  branches  to  stifle  its  natural 
and  healthy  development.  I  feel  impelled  to  call  attention  particularly 
to  one  feature  of  our  system :  its  tendency  to  permanency  of  tenure,  and  to 
consider  whether  any  evils  lurk  in  that  tendency;  and  if  so,  how  they  can 
best  be  eradicated.  It  may  be  said  that  the  civil  service  law  does  not 
provide  for  any  permanency  at  all,  and  this  is  true.  It  is  undoubtedly  the 
right  and  the  duty  of  every  superior  officer  to  dismiss  his  subordinates 
whenever  they  cease  to  be  efficient.  But  the  fact  that  there  is  no  fixed 
term,  and  no  temptation  to  remove  a  man  in  order  to  get  his  place  for 
another,  accompanied  with  the  very  human  reluctance  of  all  in  authority 
to  cause  personal  distress  to  those  who  are  dependent  upon  them,  leads 
naturally  to  a  greater  continuity  of  tenure  than  exists  under  the  system 
of  rotation  in  office.  And  if  this  tendency  be  unrestrained,  it  may  in  time 
develop  certain  evils  of  superannuation  in  government  employees  which 
will  inevitably  be  attributed  to  the  competitive  system.  The  superannu- 
ation which  now  exists  cannot  be  justly  laid  at  the  doors  of  that  system, 
since  the  old  employees  now  in  the  service  came  in  not  by  competition 
but  by  patronage.  The  amount  of  superannuation  at  present  is  not 
great.  Three  investigations  have  shown  that  the  ntmiber  of  persons  in 
the  service  over  seventy  years  of  age  is  only  about  two  per  cent.  Yet  in 
some  particular  departments,  notably  in  the  Treasury,  it  is  very  perceptible ; 
and  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  it  is  likely  to  grow  greater  as  the  years  go  by. 

Now  there  is  an  easy  remedy  to  remove  the  dangers  of  superannuation 
for  the  future,  just  as  effective  as  the  competitive  system  was  in  removing 
the  evils  of  patronage  in  the  past.  It  is  to  require  that  each  person  enter- 
ing the  civil  service  hereafter  shall,  during  his  period  of  probation  and  before 
absolute  appointment,  take  out  a  policy  in  some  responsible  company, 
providing  for  a  sufficient  annuity  when  he  reaches  a  certain  age  and  is 
separated  from  the  government  service,  or  in  case  of  physical  disability 
prior  to  that  time.  The  government  could  properly  require  the  deposit 
of  securities  from  such  company,  to  insure  the  payment  of  the  annuity, 
while  the  premiimis  could  be  secured  by  deductions  from  salaries.  This 
system  would,  by  a  law  of  natural  selection,  encourage  appointments  of  such 
as  are  physically  best  qualified  for  their  work,  and  least  Hkely  soon  to 
become  disabled  and  superannuated,  since  such  persons  would  have  an 
advantage  in  the  matter  of  premiums.  The  more  difficult  question  would 
remain,  however,  how  to  provide  against  the  superannuation  of  those  who 
are  now  in  the  service,  who  have  taken  no  such  security  against  the  in- 
firmities of  age.  These  can  be  provided  for  in  two  ways ;  first,  by  a  govern- 
ment allowance,  or  secondly,  by  a  system  of  suitable  reductions,  giving 
to  those  who  have  outlived  their  usefulness  less  pay  and  lighter  work,  the 
reductions  to  be  made  either  as  the  result  of  examinations  in  regard  to  their 


320  APPENDIX  VIII 

ability  to  perform  their  duties,  or  as  the  result  of  the  showing  of  comparative 
records  of  efficiency. 

I  believe  that  it  is  high  time  for  the  League  in  these  days  of  its  prosperity 
to  forestall  the  reproach  which  may  be  made  hereafter,  that  we  have 
permitted  barnacles  to  grow  or  remain  upon  the  fair  vessel  we  have  so 
auspiciously  launched  upon  the  waters  of  political  life. 

Let  us  improve  these  days  of  sunshine  by  making  the  amplest  provision 
for  the  security  of  the  fabric  which  our  hands  have  aided  in  erecting,  that 
it  may  at  all  times  be  strong  as  well  as  fair,  able  forever  to  resist  the  storms, 
and  to  keep  safely  within  its  chambers  the  treasure  of  good  government 
for  future  generations. 


-       APPENDIX  IX 

CITY  GOVERNMENT  BY  EXPERTS  UNDER  THE  COMPETITIVE 
SYSTEM' 

We  do  not  know  much  about  expert  management  in  America.  Our 
people  are  particularly  versatile.  They  can  change  their  occupations 
very  readily.  That  was  one  of  the  exigencies  of  our  pioneer  days.  But 
in  the  complex  conditions  which  now  surround  city  life  in  America  it  is 
necessary  that  our  municipalities  shall  be  managed  by  persons  who  have 
attained  high  skill  by  experience. 

There  were  always  indeed  some  places  in  which  we  employed  experts. 
You  could  not  very  well  construct  city  buildings  without  an  architect, 
nor  a  sewer  or  street  system  without  an  engineer.  There  had  to  be  some 
kind  of  a  doctor  in  the  health  department,  and  some  kind  of  a  lawyer — 
generally  a  pretty  poor  one — in  the  department  of  law,  but  outside  of  such 
places  any  man  could  do  anything.  What  was  the  necessity  of  talking 
about  an  expert  at  the  head  of  the  street  cleaning  department?  Get  a  lot 
of  street  sweepers — unskilled  laborers — ^let  them  pile  the  dust  and  the 
dirt  in  the  street  and  shovel  it  into  a  cart,  and  then  cart  it  away  to  the  dimip 
pile.  Any  man  could  do  that,  and  the  politician  who  controlled  a  certain 
election  district  or  precinct  was  the  man  who  would  get  the  office,  and  it 
didn't  make  any  difiference  whether  he  knew  anything  about  street  sweeping 
or  not.  But  the  street  sweeping  department  requires  an  expert  as  much 
as  the  department  of  law  or  the  department  of  health.  In  the  first  place, 
there  is  a  very  close  relation  between  the  cleaning  of  our  streets  and  the 
health  of  our  inhabitants,  especially  in  the  slum  districts  of  the  city,  where 
the  dust  from  the  street  is  blown  into  the  houses  and  breeds  contagion  and 
death.  It  is  very  important  that  the  head  of  the  street  cleaning  depart- 
ment should  be  in  close  touch  with  the  health  department.  In  the  next 
place,  it  is  well  known  now  that  from  sixty  to  ninety  per  cent  of  the  dirt 
of  our  cities  can  be  prevented  from  accumulating  on  our  streets  at  all,  and 
the  man  at  the  head  of  the  street  cleaning  department  ought  to  know  just 
what  things  are  necessary  to  keep  the  dirt  off  the  street.  And  then  there  is 
a  very  close  relation  also  with  the  building  department,  because  the  build- 

'  Address  at  the  Annual  Meeting  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform 
League,  December  3,  1914. 

ai  321 


322  APPENDIX  IX 

ings  that  are  adjoining  the  street  and  the  excavations  that  are  made  have 
a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  cleanliness  or  the  filth  of  onr  streets,  and  the 
head  of  the  department  should  know  how  to  provide  as  far  as  possible  against 
the  streets  becoming  unnecessarily  dirty  in  that  way,  and  he  should  know 
also  how  to  take  away  ice  and  snow  in  the  winter  time. 

I  know  a  head  of  a  street  cleaning  department,  in  a  certain  city  not  very 
far  from  where  I  happen  to  live,  who,  when  the  alleys  of  the  city  got  choked 
up  in  the  winter  by  filth  which  made  them  impassable,  said  there  was  no 
use  in  the  world  trying  to  clean  them  until  the  snow  and  ice  had  melted ! 
That  was  his  idea  of  the  performance  of  his  duty. 

Now,  in  Germany  nobody  ever  thinks  of  putting  at  the  head  of  a  depart- 
ment like  that  an  imskilled  man.  The  man  must  not  only  be  a  Baumeister 
but  as  a  general  thing  he  is  a  professional  expert  with  a  university  training. 
In  Dresden  the  present  head  is  instructor  to  the  Royal  Technical  Col- 
lege of  Saxony,  and  he  has  a  laboratory  and  does  scientific  work  in  the 
administration  of  the  street  cleaning  department. 

The  head  of  this  department  must  know  the  various  appliances  which  are 
used  for  sweeping  and  for  flushing,  and  which  he  can  use  to  the  best  effect ; 
and  the  cost  of  cleaning  one  himdred  square  feet  of  street — whether  he  can 
do  it  more  cheaply  by  flushing  or  by  hand  work  or  by  machinery.  You  go 
to  a  German  city  and  the  street  cleaning  doesn't  begin  until  about  eleven 
o'clock  at  night,  when  everybody  is  in  bed.  Then  they  come  out — first  the 
sprinkler  and  then  the  sweeper,  and  after  that  the  carts  to  take  the  dirt 
away;  and  in  the  morning  all  is  absolutely  clean.  Look  at  the  condition  o f 
the  streets  of  our  cities  and  compare  it  with  the  conditions  of  the  streets  in 
German  cities,  or  those  in  Scandinavia,  which  are  as  clean  as  any  floor 
in  your  home.  You  can  see  that  one  is  the  result  of  expert  management 
and  the  other  is  the  result  of  the  management  of  an  unskilled  man. 

Take  the  health  department.  Everybody  knows  that  infant  mortality  is 
caused  very  largely  by  trouble  with  the  milk  or  other  food  and  under  Doctor 
Goler  in  Rochester  the  infant  mortaUty  was  diminished  more  than  one  half 
in  a  single  year,  because  there  was  an  expert  in  charge  of  that  department . 
It  is  to  be  said  to  the  credit  of  the  present  Dayton  management  that  the 
infant  mortality  in  that  city  had  been  diminished  in  one  year  forty  per  cent 
by  reason  of  having  experts  in  charge. 

Then  take  the  building  department.  Our  loss  in  America  from  fires 
every  year  is  more  than  one  quarter  of  a  billion  of  dollars.  The  loss  by 
fire  per  capita  in  Germany  is  28  cents,  in  England  33  cents,  in  America  I2.25. 
Now,  that  difference  is  an  unnecessary  loss. 

While  I  was  in  Berlin  on  one  occasion  a  fire  broke  out  right  opposite  the 
hotel  where  we  were  and  there  was  a  little  fire  engine  that  came  up ;  it  looked 
ridiculously  small.  The  fire  was  on  the  third  floor  of  the  building  and  I 
saw  people  on  the  floor  above  looking  out  of  the  window  unconcernedly  at 
the  flames  below  and  others,  on  the  floor  below,  looking  out  with  consider- 
able curiosity  at  the  flames  above — ^not  in  the  least  alarmed,  because  they 


APPENDIX  IX  323 

knew  the  fire  never  could  reach  their  floor;  and  it  did  not.  In  a  little  while 
it  was  put  out.  Why?  The  building  was  actually  fireproof.  How  can  a 
German  city  do  that  while  an  American  city  cannot  do  it?  Because  the 
German  city  has  an  efficient  expert  at  the  head  of  the  building  department. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  the  fire  department  at  all.  They  build  their  buildings 
so  that  the  fire  can't  get  from  one  story  to  another. 

Now,  we  could  save  in  that  way  something  like  $200,000,000  a  year  in 
this  country  of  oiirs  if  we  had  expert  management  and  proper  regulations 
enforced  by  our  cities. 

Well,  I  could  go  on  thus  from  one  department  to  another.  Take  the 
department  of  finance.  There  is  nothing  that  requires  more  expert  knowl- 
edige  than  the  question  of  the  best  method  of  imposing  city  taxes.  Expert 
knowledge  is  required  for  the  purpose  of  having  uniform  systems  of  accounts 
that  really  tell  something  about  a  city's  condition  and  an  expert  is  neces- 
sary in  regard  to  franchises.  The  public  service  corporations  have  expert! 
of  the  very  highest  character,  to  whom  they  give  very  large  salaries  and  the 
city  generally  has  men  who  know  very  little  about  franchises  and  a  few 
"weasel  words"  get  into  them  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  the  city  is 
within  the  grip  of  the  public  service  corporations.  You  need  an  expert 
there  to  take  charge  of  the  giving  of  franchise^  by  a  city. 

Everywhere  special  knowledge  is  necessary.  Now,  how  are  you  going 
to  get  it?  You  can't  elect  experts  with  our  plan  of  an  enormous  ballot.  Is 
there  anybody  that  has  ever  cast  that  ballot  here  in  Chicago  who  really 
knows  the  qualifications  of  one  tenth  of  the  parties  upon  it?  You  don't 
know  and  you  can't  know.  If  you  have  a  good  voters'  league,  that  will 
tell  you  about  some  of  them — you  have  to  take  what  they  say;  but  in 
most  cities  the  voters'  league  doesn't  exist.  The  short  ballot  is  a  neces- 
sity to  good  government;  yet  you  can't  have  a  short  ballot  if  you  are 
going  to  elect  all  your  experts.  How  can  you  tell  their  qualifications? 
You  can't  tell  the  technical  qualifications  of  any  one  man,  let  alone 
the  dozens  that  will  be  up  for  election.  So  you  can't  elect  the  ex- 
perts; that  is  impossible,  and  yet  if  you  leave  it  to  your  council  to 
choose  the  experts  you  have  something  that  is  just  as  bad.  The  council, 
if  it  were  composed  of  disinterested  and  skillful  men,  might  get  a  good 
expert ;  but  in  point  of  fact  a  council  is  nearly  always  a  poHtical  body. 
There  is  a  lot  of  log-rolling.  "You  vote  for  my  man  and  I  will  vote  for 
your  man. "  The  result  i?  you  get  a  bad  lot  of  officials.  There  is  only  one 
way  to  get  experts  and  that  is  by  the  competitive  system.  People  used 
to  say  about  the  merit  system,  "It  is  all  very  well  for  clerks  and  stenogra- 
phers and  things  of  that  kind,  but  when  it  comes  to  men  with  high 
technical  skill  and  accomplishments  you  can't  get  them  that  way,  they 
won't  submit  to  examination";  and  so  there  were  a  number  of  exceptions 
made  in  offices  where  special  qualifications  were  required.  These  were  left 
out  of  the  civil  service  examinations.  They  are  the  very  men  whose 
qualifications  can  be  tested  best  of  aU  in  that  way.    I  suppose  there  was  a 


324  APPENDIX  IX 

time  when  it  was  true  that  physicians  of  great  skill  or  lawyers  of  consider- 
able ability  and  so  on  would  not  consent  to  take  competitive  examinations 
conducted  by  commissions  that  did  not  know  anything  of  technical  sub- 
jects. But  conditions  have  entirely  altered.  The  commissions  don't 
profess,  themselves,  to  prepare  the  questions  or  grade  the  papers,  but  they 
call  in  experts  of  the  highest  class  in  the  particular  profession  for  which 
an  examination  is  to  be  held.  In  the  examination  held  for  librarian 
here  in  Chicago,  the  most  skillful  men  in  the  country,  Mr.  Putnam  of  the 
congressional  library  in  Washington,  and  other  librarians,  were  called  to 
prepare  the  papers  and  grade  the  candidates,  and  they  succeeded  in 
getting  for  the  public  library  of  your  city  one  of  the  greatest  librarians  of 
,  our  country. 

'We  find  that  not  only  are  chemists  and  engineers  and  men  of  that  kind 
employed  in  this  way,  but  even  high  administrative  officers.  For  instance, 
the  superintendent  of  the  lighthouse  service  is  so  chosen ;  the  chief  of  the 
fire  department  in  New  York  city  was  so  selected  and  superintendents 
of  Indian  reservations.  Those  are  places  that  require  large  administrative 
ability.  You  say,  "How  are  you  going  to  examine  these  men  and  find 
out  what  their  qualifications  are?  "  Supposing  you  were  the  president  of  a 
railroad  and  wanted  to  get  a  man  for  a  position,  perhaps  the  superintendent 
of  an  important  division,  how  would  you  go  about  it  if  you  didn't  happen 
to  know  a  suitable  man?  What  such  a  president  would  do  would  be 
this.  He  would  go  to  those  that  have  knowledge  of  the  respective  appli- 
cants (for  instance,  the  men  they  had  worked  for),  and  he  would  inquire  of 
each,  "How  long  has  he  worked  for  you,  how  many  men  has  he  been  in 
charge  of,  what  has  been  his  experience,  what  is  his  education,  what  are  his 
qualifications,  what  can  you  say  as  to  his  honesty, "  and  so  forth.  If  he 
were  a  careful  president,  he  would  take  all  the  precautions  of  that  kind  that 
he  could  and  he  would  investigate  all  the  references  given.  That  is  exactly 
what  the  examiners  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  do  in  the  examination, 
for  instance,  of  a  superintendent  of  Indian  reservations.  They  don't  bring 
the  applicants  all  together  and  ask  them  a  lot  of  questions  and  see  who  an- 
swers the  greatest  number  of  those  questions, — not  at  all;  but  they  require 
that  each  man  shall  give  the  name  of  ten  persons  and  of  those  ten  persons 
at  least  five  must  be  men  who  have  been  his  superiors  or  subordinates  and 
they  inquire  of  these  men  what  kind  of  work  he  has  done,  how  long  he  has 
worked  at  it,  etc.  They  give  this  investigation  a  grading  of  four  out  of  ten. 
Then  they  inquire  of  the  applicant  himself  as  to  his  business  experience, 
what  men  he  has  had  under  him,  where  he  has  worked,  what  kind  of  work 
it  was,  etc.  That  is  what  a  man  does  if  he  be  a  head  of  a  great  corporation 
and  that  is  exactly  what  the  examiners  of  the  United  States  Civil  Service 
Commission  do.  They  reqtiire  him  also  to  write  a  thesis  or  article  upon 
what  he  considers  his  duty — what  he  ought  to  do  as  superintendent,  and  in 
some  cases  they  have  also  an  oral  examination  in  order  that  they  may  test 
the  qualities  of  the  man  by  means  of  a  personal  interview,  just  as  the  presi- 


APPENDIX  IX  325 

dent  of  a  railroad  would  call  before  him  some  of  the  applicants  in  order 
that  he  could  see  which  of  them  appeared  to  be  the  most  intelligent. 

Now,  that  is  the  kind  of  an  examination  it  is.  Perhaps  it  ought  not  to 
be  called  an  examination.  I  think  I  would  rather  call  it  a  competitive 
investigation  or  competitive  test.  It  is  a  non-assembled  examination.  In 
that  way  you  get  the  highest  kind  of  service.  That  is  the  only  way  to  keep 
those  places  out  of  politics  and  to  have  them  go  really  to  those  who  are  most 
competent  to  perform  the  duties. 


APPENDIX  X 

BRIEF  IN  OPPOSITION  TO  EXCLUSIVE  POWER  OVER  REMOVALS 
BY  CIVIL  SERVICE  COMMISSIONS 

According  to  the  proposed  model  law  the  man  managing  a  department 
or  perhaps  a  whole  city  can  neither  appoint,  suspend,  transfer,  or  remove  a 
single  one  of  his  subordinates.  He  has  not  the  slightest  power  over  any  of 
them  except  the  power  which  every  citizen  has  of  making  complaint  to  the 
Commission, 

What  means  are  left  to  enforce  his  authority  and  command  the  respect 
and  loyalty  of  his  employees?  What  assurance  is  there  that  the  Civil 
Service  Commission  will  cooperate  with  department  heads  in  carrying 
out  their  plans  and  enforcing  their  ideas  of  efficiency  and  loyal  service? 
When  a  man  whom  the  head  of  a  department  knows  is  dishonest  or  insub- 
ordinate is  retained  by  the  Commission  what  is  the  department  head  to  do? 
He  has  made  his  charges  and  he  has  been  turned  down.  What  is  his 
authority  over  his  own  force  thereafter? 

The  Commission  is  not  to  be  elected  by  the  people  or  even  appointed 
directly  by  the  people's  representative,  but  chosen  as  the  result  of  a  com- 
petitive examination,  and  cannot  be  recalled  or  removed  by  the  people  nor 
by  any  silperior  officer  whatever  but  only  after  trial  by  a  tribunal  specially 
organized  for  the  purpose.  The  Commission  is  therefore  responsible  to  no 
one  for  its  decisions,  yet  it  removes  or  retains  employees  for  whose  conduct 
another  is  responsible. 

Let  us  take  the  city  of  Dayton  as  an  illustration  of  removals  by  a  civil 
service  board.  It  is  the  largest  city  which  has  adopted  the  manager 
form  of  government.  This  city  is  governed  by  five  city  commissioners  who 
have  selected  an  expert  from  another  city,  Henry  M.  Waitej  to  administer 
their  mimicipal  affairs.  In  answer  to  my  inquiry  as  to  what  the  Dayton 
manager  thought  of  this  proposal  and  after  showing  him  the  provision  of  the 
"model  law"  affecting  removals,  he  wrote,  "Discipline  could  not  be  main- 
tained. Your  civil  service  board  had  better  operate,  your  results  would 
be  more  likely  to  attain  success  than  under  the  proposed  idea.  I  cannot 
see  how  any  person  who  desired  success  could  afford  to  attempt  to  operate 
under  such  a  rule.     Certainly  I  would  not. " 

If  a  deliberate  effort  were  made  to  checkmate  the  present  course  of 

326 


APPENDIX  X  327 

municipal  progress  in  securing  business  management  for  cities  it  could 
not  be  done  more  effectually  than  by  securing  the  passage  of  a  "model 
law"  taking  from  expert  managing  officers  all  power  to  control  their  sub- 
ordinates. 

The  leaders  of  the  movement  for  civil  service  reform  have  expressed  the 
conviction  that  the  power  of  the  responsible  superior  officer  to  remove 
his  subordinates  ought  not  to  be  taken  away.  Over  and  over  again  did 
George  William  Curtis  declare  this  principle.  In  his  address  before  the 
American  Social  Science  Association  September  8,  1881,  and  again  in  his 
address  at  the  fifth  annual  meeting  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform 
League,  August  4, 1886,  he  said:  "Removal  for  cause,  if  the  cause  were  to  be 
decided  by  any  authority  hut  that  of  the  superior  officer,  instead  of  improving 
would  swiftly  and  enormously  enhance  the  cost,  and  ruin  the  efficiency  of 
the  public  service  by  destroying  subordination  and  making  every  lazy 
officer  or  clerk  twice  as  lazy  and  incompetent  as  before. " 

Mr.  Carl  Schurz,  in  his  discussion  before  that  League  at  its  Newport 
meeting  in  1886,  said:  "I  would  leave  to  the  appointing  officer  the  entire 
discretion  of  removing  subordinates,  but  I  would  oblige  him  in  all  cases 
to  state  the  reasons.  The  reasons  would  fall  under  either  misconduct  or 
inefficiency." 

Mr.  Dorman  B.  Eaton  thought  that  the  Leaguers  condemnation  of  re- 
movals should  be  limited  to  removals  for  partisan  reasons  or  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  place  for  another,  and  accordingly  the  resolution  of  the 
League  so  provided  {Proceedings,  1886,  p.  32). 

Two  years  later  the  League  expressed  officially  in  its  formal  resolutions, 
without  dissent,  the  following  principle  (1888,  p.  32):  "An  office-holding 
class  and  a  permanent  tenure  are  practically  impossible  so  long  as  the  power 
of  removal  remains  unimpaired. " 

In  1896,  its  resolutions  declared:  "  The  League  fully  recognizes  the  impor- 
tance of  preserving  to  responsible  superior  officers  the  power  of  removal  of  their 
subordinates  whenever  in  their  judgment  this  power  should  be  exercised  in  the 
public  interest." 

What  is  a  life  tenure?  It  is  not  that  the  official  or  employee  is  absolutely 
irremovable.  Federal  judges  are  not  irremovable,  yet  they  have  a  life 
tenure.  The  essence  of  it  is  that  they  cannot  be  removed  by  the  executive 
or  by  any  superior  officer  but  only  after  trial  by  some  independent  body 
and  that  they  are  therefore  themselves  independent.  This  would  be  true 
of  employees  in  the  civil  service  if  the  proposed  law  were  enacted. 

It  is  asked,  "  Why  are  you  unwilling  to  take  away  the  power  of  removals 
from  heads  of  departments  and  yet  insist  that  the  power  of  appointment  shall 
be  taken  away  by  competitive  examinations  ? ' '  The  answer  is  that  the  latter 
is  necessary  to  protect  the  service  against  political  appointments  while 
discipline  can  be  maintained,  no  matter  who  makes  the  appointments,  only 
so  long  as  the  power  of  removal  remains  unimpaired. 

It  is  said  the  lack  of  permanency  of  tenure  will  discotirage  the  best  men 


328  APPENDIX  X 

from  competing.  Has  it  discouraged  them?  Are  we  not  getting  all  over 
the  country,  men  of  higher  and  higher  qualifications,  who  are  quite  satisfied 
with  the  same  kind  of  permanency  which  exists  in  private  corporations, 
where  every  applicant  knows  that  his  tenure  depends  on  giving  satisfaction 
to  his  employer? 

The  argimients  in  support  of  vesting  the  exclusive  power  of  removal 
in  the  Civil  Service  Commission  as  urged  by  the  advocates  of  this  system 
were  these: 

I.  It  follows  the  system  adopted  in  our  great  industrial  organizations. 

II.  It  is  approved  by  our  most  eminent  publicists  and  civil  service 
reformers. 

III.  It  is  necessary  to  protect  the  service  against  the  evils  of  a  trial  in 
court  and  it  avoids  expensive  and  dilatory  legal  procedure. 

IV.  It  has  been  justified  by  twenty  years  of  satisfactory  experience  in 
Chicago  and  Cook  County  and  by  a  number  of  years  of  successful  experience 
in  the  State  service  in  Illinois. 

I.  As  to  the  first  claim  that  the  proposed  plan  follows  the  methods 
adopted  in  our  greatest  and  most  progressive  industrial  organizations, 
we  were  referred  to  the  great  railways  of  the  coimtry,  to  Marshall  Field  & 
Co.,  and  to  the  International  Harvester  Co. 

As  to  the  railways,  the  secretary  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Reform 
League  wrote  to  the  superintendent  of  employment  of  nine  of  the  principal 
S3^tems,  *  and  found  that  in  every  case  but  one  (the  Pullman  Co.)  the  manag- 
ing officer  had  the  final  authority.  I  afterwards  wrote  to  the  Pullman  Co., 
which  answered,  "While  the  dismissal  or  retention  of  an  employee  is  ordin- 
arily handled  and  controlled  by  a  Central  Agency,  extraordinary  conditions 
occasionally  arise  wherein  the  action  of  the  Central  Agency  is  overruled  or 
set  aside  by  our  Executive  and  General  Officers. " 

I  also  learned  from  a  superintendent  of  the  Pennsylvania  lines  west  of 
Pittsburgh  that  the  division  superintendents  had  themselves  the  power  of 
dismissal,  subject  to  an  appeal  to  higher  operating  officers  and  that  the 
board  which  took  cognizance  of  the  matter  in  aid  of  the  executive  officials 
had  itself  no  final  authority. 

In  answer  to  an  inquiry  addressed  to  the  president  of  Marshall  Field  & 
Co.,  I  received  the  following.  "Our  practice  in  most  cases  is  to  place  the 
power  of  removal  with  the  departmental  managers,  the  executive  staff,  how- 
ever, having  knowledge  of  such  removals  and  the  causes  leading  up  to  them. 
If  a  departmental  head  is  to  be  held  responsible  for  the  efficiency  of  his 
organization  he  should  have  control,  within  certain  limits,  of  the  personnel 
of  his  staff  and  without  the  power  of  removal  he  could  not  assume  such 
responsibilities  successfully." 

» Chicago,  Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul,  Chicago,  Burlington  &  Quincy,  Lehigh 
Valley,  New  Haven,  Baltimore  &  Ohio,  Southern  Pacific,  Delaware,  Lacka- 
wanna &  Western,  Delaware  &  Hudson,  and  the  Pullman  Co. 


APPENDIX  X  329 

I  inquired  of  Mr.  George  W.  Perkins  in  regard  to  the  International 
Harvester  Co.,  and  learned  from  him  that  the  ultimate  right  to  remove 
subordinates  remained  in  the  operating  officers;  that  they  could  not  conduct 
their  business  in  any  other  way.  He  considered  removals  by  an  independ- 
ent emplojrment  agency  impracticable. 

After  all  the  instances  of  business  management  cited  had  shown  exactly 
the  reverse  of  what  was  claimed,  another  case  was  brought  up,  that  of  Wm. 
Filene  Sons'  Company  in  which  it  was  urged  that  something  resembling  the 
proposed  law  was  adopted. 

It  appears  that  this  company  put  the  decision  as  to  all  dismissals  in  the 
hands  of  an  arbitration  committee  appointed  by  its  employees,  who  might 
by  a  two-thirds  vote  reinstate  any  man  dismissed.  But  at  the  close  of  the 
instructions  given  by  the  directors  on  November  i,  1912,  authorizing  this 
committee,  was  the  following  significant  paragraph :  "The  above  instructions 
are  subject  to  amendment,  alteration  or  repeal  by  the  Board  of  Directors. " 

The  Filene  Company  also  allowed  its  employees  four  members  in  a 
directorate  of  eleven.  Still  the  ultimate  power  remained  in  the  directors 
who  represented  the  stockholders.  Four  directors  cannot  outvote  seven 
and  if  any  obnoxious  employee  should  be  reinstated  by  the  arbitration  board 
a  complete  remedy  was  held  in  reserve,  the  directors  could  amend  or  repeal 
the  instructions  and  abolish  the  arbitration  committee. 

The  proposed  model  law  was  entirely  different.  The  Civil  Service  Com- 
missioner was  to  be  appointed,  not  by  employees,  but  by  an  independent 
mechanical  device — a  competitive  examination — ^and  could  not  be  removed 
except  by  an  independent  tribimal.  Neither  the  governor  of  the  State  nor 
the  mayor,  manager  nor  coimcil  of  any  city  would  have  the  reserve  power 
so  necessary  to  discipHne,  nor  could  the  action  of  the  Commission  be  con- 
trolled if  it  were  to  do  the  thing  which  would  destroy  all  subordination  in 
the  service.  If  the  Filene  Co.  had  established  a  rule  that  they  would 
reinstate  any  man  whom  some  independent  officer  decided  should  be 
restored,  and  if  they  had  taken  away  from  their  own  directors  all  right  to 
repeal  or  amend  the  power  thus  conferred  upon  this  independent  tribunal 
the  analogy  would  be  closer. 

It  is  said  that  this  proposed  model  law  is  in  line  with  the  discipline  in 
the  miHtary  and  naval  service,  that  an  officer  cannot  dismiss  a  soldier  or 
sailor,  but  must  bring  the  case  to  the  hearing  of  a  court-martial.  Yet  the 
finding  of  a  court-martial  is  always  subject  to  the  approval  of  a  commanding 
officer.  The  ultimate  authority  rests  with  the  executive  official.  What- 
ever the  form  that  is  the  vital  principle.  It  is  the  reserve  power  to  make 
the  final  decision  which  is  necessary  to  maintain  proper  discipline  and 
subordination  in  the  civil  service  just  as  in  the  army  and  navy. 

II.  It  was  claimed  that  this  removal  plan  was  approved  by  our  most  emi- 
nent pubHcists  and  civil  service  reformers.  On  the  contrary  their  opinions 
were  the  other  way.  The  declarations  of  George  WiUiam  Curtis,  Carl  Schurz, 
and  Dorman  B.  Eaton  have  already  been  given.    President  Lowell  of  Har- 


330  APPENDIX  X 

vaxd  was  referred  to.  He  wrote  me  "In  Section  48  of  the  Model  Charter 
for  Cities,  we  agreed  that  officers  might  be  removed  by  the  City  Manager 
or  head  of  the  department  and  I  do  not  beHeve  that  an  administration 
could  be  made  to  work  well  otherwise. " 

Mr.  Charles  J.  Bonaparte,  who  had  been  chairman  of  the  Cotincil  of  the 
League  wrote  me,  November  16,  19 15.  "I  am  inflexibly  opposed  to  any- 
thing amounting  to  a  trial  for  a  subordinate  removed  or  disciplined  by  a 
superior  unless  the  latter  thinks  something  of  the  kind  is  needed  to  guide 
his  own  judgment. " 

The  two  men  in  America  who  have  had  the  widest  experience  in  the 
Federal  service.  President  Roosevelt  and  President  Taf  t  are  utterly  opposed 
to  this  measure.  President  Taft  wrote,  "I  am  very  much  opposed  to  any 
civil  service  law  which  takes  from  the  managing  and  operating  officers  the 
power  of  dismissing  subordinates  and  gives  it  to  an  independent  body." 

President  Roosevelt  wrote,  "I  regard  the  proposed  law  as  seeking  to 
establish  a  condition  much  worse  than  the  spoils  system.  If  the  proposal 
or  any  proposal  resembling  it  is  adopted  I  shall  resign  and  shall  state  that 
nothing  proposed  by  Tammany  during  my  life-time  has  begun  to  approach 
in  mischief  this  proposal.  .  .  .  Proposals  such  as  this  tend  hopelessly  to 
discredit  the  cause  of  civil  service  reforai  among  sensible  people  and  nothing 
more  mischievous  could  be  imagined. " 

Seth  Low,  former  mayor  of  Brookljoi  and  afterwards  of  Greater  New  York, 
wrote,  "I  am  unreservedly  in  sympathy  with  the  objections  you  make  to 
the  proposed  section  of  the  model  law  which  would  transfer  the  question  of 
the  removal  of  employees  in  the  public  service  from  the  responsible  officials 
to  a  civil  service  commissioner  or  commissioners.  No  man  who  under- 
stands the  first  principles  of  sound  administration  would  be  willing  to  accept 
responsibility  under  such  a  system.  Nothing  can  do  the  system  as  a  whole 
so  much  injury  as  to  have  its  friends  stand  for  such  a  proposal. " 

General  Winkler,  the  venerable  president  of  the  Wisconsin  Civil  Service 
Reform  Association  wrote,  "  If  the  League  adopts  the  model  law  as  its  plat- 
form, I  was  going  to  say  I  should  cease  to  be  a  civil  service  reformer,  but  I 
will  only  say  that  the  very  little  I  shall  be  able  to  do  will  be  on  the  outside 
of  its  folds." 

Moorfield  Storey  declared,  "I  feel  it  would  be  disastrous  if  the  power  of 
removal  were  left  as  it  is  in  the  proposed  bill." 

Mr.  Henry  F.  Hunt,  the  reform  mayor  of  Cincinnati  writes,  "In  my 
opinion,  to  lodge  such  power  anywhere  other  than  in  the  person  responsible 
for  the  efficiency  of  his  division  would  be  ruinous." 

III.  It  is  said  that  we  must  provide  for  removals  by  the  Civil  Service 
Commission  in  order  to  protect  the  service  against  the  greater  evil  of  legis- 
lation providing  for  removals  by  a  trial  in  court.  In  some  special  places 
there  may  be  danger  of  legislation  granting  such  a  trial.  But  this  proposed 
model  law  was  not  a  local  or  temporary  concession  of  an  evil  thing  in  order 
to  prevent  a  still  greater  evil  (which  might  well  be  necessary  at  certain  times 


APPENDIX  X  331 

or  in  certain  places)  it  was  proposed  for  acceptance  and  adoption  every- 
where as  a  thing  right  in  itself,  and  ought  not  to  contain  things  adapted 
only  to  special  conditions. 

If  the  argument  were  to  be  received,  that  trials  by  the  Commission  were 
to  protect  the  service  against  something  worse,  then  we  ought  to  look  at 
the  other  side  of  the  picture  and  see  what  danger  may  follow  if  the  power 
of  removal  is  taken  from  operating  officers.  For  years  past  civil  service 
reformers  have  been  fighting  session  after  session  against  the  enactment 
of  laws  fixing  a  definite  term  for  places  in  the  classified  service.  The  argu- 
ment has  been,  "Why  provide  for  removals  at  the  end  of  a  fixed  term  when 
the  superior  officer  has  a  right  to  remove  subordinates  at  any  time  for  proper 
cause?"  The  argument  is  unanswerable  and  it  has  prevailed.  But  if  this 
power  of  removal  be  taken  away,  the  chief  defense  against  such  injurious 
legislation  will  fall  to  the  groimd. 

IV.  The  next  claim  is  that  the  system  of  removal  proposed  has  been 
justified  by  over  twenty  years'  satisfactory  experience  with  a  similar  rule  in 
Chicago- 

The  answer  to  this  is  that  in  the  first  place  the  rule  is  not  similar  and  in 
the  second  place  the  experience  has  not  been  satisfactory. 

The  rule  is  not  similar  in  two  vital  particulars.  In  the  first  place  the 
Chicago  removals  are  made  by  a  commission  appointed  and  removable  by 
the  same  authority  as  that  which  administers  the  various  departments,  to 
wit,  by  the  mayor.  He  is  the  responsible  head  and  can  get  rid  of  the  com- 
mission when  he  will.  The  mayor  is  also  the  head  of  the  administration  and 
appoints  and  removes  the  heads  of  departments.  But  by  the  proposed  law 
the  power  of  removal  is  entrusted  to  an  independent  tribunal,  neither 
appointed  nor  removed  by  the  head  of  the  administration.  By  the  pro- 
posed system  there  is  to  be  a  two-headed  administration  in  which  mutual 
struggles  would  be  inevitable  and  discipline  impossible. 

In  the  second  place  the  Chicago  rule  left  to  the  head  of  the  office  some 
remnant  of  the  means  of  enforcing  discipline  but  the  proposed  law  would 
not  do  this. 

The  Chicago  law  gives  to  the  head  of  departments  the  right  to  suspend 
any  subordinate  for  thirty  days  without  pay.  This  amounts  of  itself  to 
the  fine  of  a  month's  salary  and  is  imposed  as  a  direct  punishment.  But 
by  the  proposed  model  law  a  man  could  only  be  suspended  as  a  precaution- 
ary measure  for  fifteen  days.  Then  if  the  charges  are  not  sustained  he 
gets  full  pay.  The  head  of  the  department  has  no  power  of  punishment 
whatever. 

But  it  is  emphatically  untrue  that  the  Chicago  rule  has  worked  well 
during  the  last  twenty  years.  It  has  worked  to  the  satisfaction  of  only 
two  classes,  the  commissioners  who  administer  it  and  the  classified  employ- 
ees who  are  protected  by  it.  I  found  the  commissioners  unanimous  in  their 
belief  that  the  removal  rule  was  a  good  thing,  just  as  we  would  find  that  an 
autocrat  would  believe  that  the  divine  right  of  kings  was  a  good  thing. 


332  APPENDIX  X 

They  know  that  they  have  administered  the  law  well  and  have  dismissed 
and  retained  just  the  right  persons. 

But  even  some  of  those  connected  with  the  trial  boards,  realize  that  the 
system  is  a  bad  one.  Thus  Professor  Fairlie,  who  was  one  of  them  wrote 
me: 

"  From  observation  and  informal  inquiry,  I  believe  that  the  requirement 
for  a  formal  investigation  does  cause  the  superior  officers  to  feel  hampered 
in  their  relations  with  their  subordinates,  and  encourages  the  subordinate 
in  laxity  and  careless  work  in  minor  matters  which  do  not  lend  themselves 
easily  to  the  presentation  of  formal  charges. 

"  A  civil  service  commission  or  investigating  officer  under  the  Illinois  law 
could  easily  interfere  with  the  control  of  superior  officers  over  their  sub- 
ordinates." 

I  found  also  that  the  classified  employees  protected  by  the  Chicago 
•  removal  rule  were  very  generally  in  favor  of  it. 

But  as  to  the  heads  of  departments  whose  power  of  discipline  was  taken 
away,  I  found  the  feeling  was  quite  different. 

I  went  up  and  down  the  corridors  of  the  City  Hall,  first  to  one  office  and 
then  to  another,  and  introduced  myself  and  found  that  every  head  of  a 
department  that  I  interviewed  opposed  the  rule.  One  of  them  told  me 
that  although  he  had  had  no  friction  with  the  Commission  himself,  he 
greatly  disapproved  of  the  plan  of  taking  this  power  from  the  head  of  the 
department.  He  said  that  bad  conduct  often  consisted  in  a  succession  of 
little  things  lasting  for  years  and  not  provable  before  a  commission,  and  he 
also  gave  me  for  illustration  a  case  which  had  come  to  his  knowledge  in 
another  department  where  the  head  had  repeatedly  tried  in  vain  to  dis- 
charge an  intemperate  employee. 

In  the  Police  Department  I  learned  that  a  policeman  had  been  dismissed 
on  the  charge  of  receiving  money  from  prostitutes  for  protection,  but 
had  been  restored  by  the  commissioners  while  the  General  Superintendent 
of  Police  was  absent  and  knew  nothing  about  it. 

I  accordingly  called  upon  Mr.  Healey,  the  General  Superintendent  of 
Police,  who  said,  "I  decline  to  discuss  the  civil  service  provisions  except  in 
the  presence  of  the  Civil  Service  Commis^oners  themselves. "  It  seemed 
to  me  that  this  refusal  was  more  eloquent  than  any  affirmative  expression. 
If  he  had  really  approved  of  the  act  of  the  Commission  in  reinstating  the 
man  there  could  have  been  no  possible  embarrassment  in  sa5dng  so,  but  if 
the  Superintendent  thought  otherwise  and  yet  realized  the  absolute  power 
which  the  Civil  Service  Commission  exercised  over  the  whole  personnel 
of  his  department,  and  if  at  the  time  this  question  was  suddenly  put  to 
him,  he  was  at  the  moment  unwilling  to  express  his  approval  of  the  rein- 
statement of  such  a  man  to  the  force  of  which  he  was  the  chief,  his  answer 
would  have  been  exactly  what  it  was.  No  incident  in  Chicago  impressed 
me  so  strongly  as  this  with  the  immense  power  of  the  Commission  for  evil 
as  well  as  for  good  and  the  manner  in  which  that  power  could  be  abused. 


APPENDIX  X  333 

It  might  be  better  to  take  back  uncomplainingly  even  such  a  man  than 

contest  this  power. 

I  called  upon  the  telephone,  Mr.  Clayton  Smith,  Warden  of  the  Cook 
County  Hospital.  He  said  he  had  had  a  nimiber  of  cases  turned  down  by 
the  Civil  Service  Commission,  and  that  it  had  impaired  discipline  among  his 
subordinates  so  that  he  kept  some  whom  he  thought  ought  not  to  stay  and 
brought  no  charges  unless  he  felt  sure  he  would  win  his  case.  He  added, 
"  They  don't  have  their  boss  in  fear  any  more.  They  put  on  an  air  indicat- 
ing that  they  can  get  back  through  the  trial  board  if  they  want  to. "  He 
noticed  that  employees  on  probation  behaved  well  while  they  were  subject 
to  dismissal  at  his  will,  but  as  soon  as  they  received  their  definite  appoint- 
ment and  were  subject  only  to  the  trial  board  their  conduct  changed  and 
they  became  difficult  to  deal  with. 

The  Chicago  Smoke  Inspector  said  to  me,  October  ii,  191 5,  "The 
department  heads  should  have  the  power  of  dismissal  because  they  are 
responsible." 

In  order  not  to  limit  my  inquiries  to  the  new  heads  of  departments 
recently  appointed,  I  visited  John  E.  Traeger  the  Sheriff,  who  had  formerly 
been  Controller  of  the  city  tmder  Mayor  Harrison,  where  his  force  was  under 
the  competitive  system. 

He  approved  of  the  civil  service  law  but  not  of  the  removal  clause.  I 
asked  him  whether  in  cases  where  the  Commission  refused  to  dismiss  a  man 
upon  charges  by  the  head  of  the  department  that  impaired  discipline,  and 
he  said  "Absolutely,"  and  he  added  later,  "Don't  make  a  Czar  of  your 
commissioner.  He'll  ruin  the  service. "  He  also  told  me  that  men  behaved 
better  when  on  probation  and  subject  to  discharge  by  the  head  of  the  ofifice 
than  they  did  after  they  had  received  a  regular  appointment. 

I  also  interviewed  over  the  telephone,  James  Gleason,  former  Superin- 
tendent of  Police,  tmder  Mayor  Harrison.  He  said,  "  I  have  known  of  cases 
where  men  were  reinstated  who  ought  not  to  be." 

I  further  found  that  the  tendency  of  this  removal  rule  was  to  make  very 
few  removals.  It  is  almost  inevitable  that  any  trial  based  on  a  complaint 
made  by  an  appointing  officer  should  become  really  a  trial  of  that  officer 
himself  as  well  as  the  subordinate  complained  of.  Hence  these  officers 
were  inclined  to  make  very  few  complaints  a,nd  permanent  tenure  of  all 
employees,  both  good  and  bad,  resulted.  This  permanency  of  tenure  had 
become  ingrained  into  the  habits  of  thought  of  the  commxmity  and  was 
promoted  by  the  decisions  of  the  courts. 

For  in  Illinois  it  has  been  held  that  a  place  on  the  eligible  list  when  once 
posted  becomes  a  property  right  which  cannot  be  canceled  for  two  years. 
How  much  more  then  is  a  position  actually  acquired  to  be  deemed  a  vested 
interest! 

It  was  stated  by  the  advocates  of  the  model  law  that  the  Chicago  removal 
rule  really  brought  about  more  dismissals  than  where  such  removals  were 
made  by  appointing  officers  but  that  such  removals  were  made  for  actual 


334  APPENDIX  X 

derelictions  and  not  for  personal  or  political  reasons.  Was  the  statement 
correct?  It  was  said  that  in  1910  there  were  203  removals  by  department 
heads,  and  in  191 1,  467  by  the  trial  board.  Was  this  a  fair  average  or  was 
it  the  case  of  a  new  broom  sweeping  clean? 

I  inquired  of  Mr.  Swanson,  Secretary  of  the  Chicago  Civil  Service 
Commission,  and  he  told  me  that  out  of  more  than  20,000  employees 
during  the  whole  year  19 14  the  trial  board  removed  73.  Less  than  16 
per  cent  of  those  charged  with  offenses  were  removed;  the  total  percentage 
of  removals  in  proportion  to  the  whole  service  was  less  than  thirty -seven 
hundredths  of  i  per  cent.  The  average  of  removals  under  other  systems  is 
about  2  per  cent,  but  under  the  trial  board  plan  it  is  only  about  one  sixth 
of  that,  so  the  Chicago  removal  rule  has  undoubtedly  secured  permanency 
for  employees.  It  comes  as  near  creating  an  actual  life  tenure  as  is  humanly 
practicable.  Does  this  work  well  in  the  long  run?  Can  anyone  pretend 
or  imagine  that  the  Chicago  civil  service  is  so  good  that  only  one  in  300 
needs  to  be  separated  from  it  during  a  whole  year?  The  general  reputation 
and  known  facts  concerning  this  service  will  not  justify  this  happy 
deduction.^ 

*It  is  said  by  advocates  of  the  proposed  model  law  that  the  serious 
evils  in  Chicago  were  due  to  the  fact  that  the  present  Commission  was  a 
particularly  bad  one  and  that  all  went  on  very  well  during  the  golden  age 
which  preceded  it. 

One  of  the  most  serious  charges  against  the  Commission  was  that  they 
allowed  an  excessive  number  of  temporary  appointments — some  9163 
authorizations  for  such  appointments  being  granted.  This  was  indeed 
highly  reprehensible.  But  Mr.  Swanson,  the  Secretary  of  the  Commission 
both  before  and  after  the  change,  in  his  : report  says:  "During  the  first 
four  months  of  last  year  11,866  such  appointments  were  authorized  by  the 
former  Commission.  During  the  next  four  months  under  the  present  Com- 
mission 9163  such  authorities  were  granted,  a  reduction  of  2703.  No  criti- 
cism was  made  of  the  record  of  the  first  four  months  but  the  record  of  the 
second  four  months  was  seized  upon  as  a  gross  violation  of  the  law.  The 
inconsistency  of  the  criticism  was  at  once  apparent. "  / 

He  also  said: 

**  The  number  of  temporary  authorities  outstanding  in  the  classified  ser- 
vice at  various  periods  is  shown  here:  April  30,  1912,  497;  June  30,  1913, 
522;  May  31,  1914,815;  Sept.  30,  1914,  78o;Feb.  i,  1915,708;  April  i,  1915, 
674;  Aug.  15,  1915,  819;  Dec.  I,  1915,  485. 

"Laborers  being  seasonal  employees  do  not  form  a  comparison  and  are 
accordingly  omitted  from  the  above  table.  December  i,  19 15,  shows  the 
lowest  point  recorded  in  more  than  three  years. " 

So  it  appears  that  during  all  these  years  of  excellent  administration  of  the 
Chicago  civil  service  law  these  excessive  temporary  appointments  were  a 
continuous  feature  of  that  administration! 


APPENDIX  X  335 

If  the  greater  permanency  caused  by  the  Chicago  removal  rule  has 
worked  so  well  why  has  the  Chicago  police  force  been  one  of  the  most 
corrupt  and  inefficient  bodies  in  municipal  history?  Why  is  crime  rampant? 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Chicago  City  Club  in  December,  191 5,  called  to  dis- 
cuss the  iniquities  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  many  spoke.  On  the 
third  day  of  this  discussion  Professor  Graham  Taylor,  president  of  the 
Chicago  School  of  Ethics  and  Philanthropy  and  one  of  the  editors  of  The 
Survey,  said: 

"Now,  talking  about  driving  the  crooks  out  of  Chicago;  I  woujd  like  to 
know  when  in  this  administration  or  any  previous  administration  the 
crooks  have  been  very  much  dispossessed,  not  only  of  their  foothold  but 
of  their  power  over  three  police  stations  in  this  city.  I  would  like  to  know 
who  has  been  in  command  of  the  Desplaines  Street  Police  Station.  Never 
the  captain  to  all  appearances.  Every  better  captain  that  has  gone  there 
has  either  gone  to  the  bad  and  gone  down  to  his  ruin,  or  else  he  has  been 
transferred  'for  the  good  of  the  service.'  .  .  . 

"  And  how  about  the  East  Chicago  Avenue  Station  and  the  Twenty- 
second  Street  Police  Station?  I  tell  you,  men,  if  we  want  life  and  property 
safe  in  this  city,  that  kind  of  farming  out  of  the  poHce  power  in  this  city  has 
got  to  stop  and  the  only  way  to  stop  it  is  by  loyalty  to  this  most  fundamental 
of  all  bases  for  good  government,  the  Civil  Service  Law  of  the  State  of 
Illinois.     If  it  isn't  satisfactory  then  let  us  make  it  so. " 

The  Mayor  of  the  city  said  (Chicago  Tribune,  December  19th) : 

"  In  Rogers  Park  alone  I  am  informed  there  have  been  twenty  first  class 
crimes  in  the  last  few  days." 

The  State  Attorney,  Mr.  McClay  Hoyne,  declared  that  the  police  depart- 
ment was  a  den  of  thieves.  The  former  Chief  of  Detectives,  John  J.  Halpin, 
was  charged  with  accepting  bribes  and  was  dismissed.  The  brutality  of  the 
police  toward  the  poor  women  engaged  in  the  garment  makers'  strike  was  a 
subject  of  public  scandal  and  almost  imiversal  reprobation. 

Mr.  Catherwood  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  National  Civil  Service 
Reform  League  in  191 1  (see  Proceedings,  p.  12)  reported  for  Illinois  that  the 
Chief  of  Police,  all  the  inspectors,  and  most  of  the  captains,  150  in  all,  had 
been  entangled  with  graft,  vice,  and  special  interests  or  were  blind  and  in- 
competent. 

Yet  this  is  the  result  of  twenty  years  of  "successful"  experience  tmder 
the  permanent  tenure  promoted  by  the  Chicago  removal  rule! 

In  the  State  civil  service  also  there  has  been  trouble  with  the  trial  board 
system  in  regard  to  the  Illinois  State  library.  The  following  statement  is 
copied  from  a  periodical  known  as  Public  Libraries  published  in  Chicago 
by  the  Library  Bureau,  the  official  organ  of  the  American  Library  Associ- 
ation. 

"In  order  to  have  a  trained  cataloguer,  it  was  necessary  to  dismiss  an 
attendant  who  was  there  by  political  appointment  when  the  present 
administration  came  in,  and  not  because  of  any  preparation  for  the  work. 


336  APPENDIX  X 

Since  the  library  is  tinder  the  civil  service  law  of  the  State,  the  dismissed 
attendant  called  on  the  Civil  Service  Commission  to  defend  what  she 
thought  were  her  rights  in  the  matter.  The  Commission  therefore  brought 
State  Librarian  Woods  to  trial  to  make  him  prove  his  charge  of  incom- 
petency against  the  attendant. 

**  Those  in  charge  of  the  library  testified  that  the  attendant  in  question 
could  not  perform  the  duties  assigned  her  satisfactorily,  was  not  acquainted 
with  the  methods  of  classification,  cataloguing,  etc.,  in  general  use,  and 
that  they  considered  her  incompetent  for  the  work.  The  civil  service  board, 
however,  took  the  position  that  she  was  not  more  incompetent  than  she 
had  ever  been  and  that  if  she  were  incompetent  the  others  there  were  incom- 
petent from  the  civil  service  point  of  view  also,  and  that  she  should  there- 
fore be  reinstated  and  receive  her  salary  for  the  two  months  of  her 
exclusion."     [Public  Libraries,  March,  19 14.) 

I  inquired  of  Mr.  George  B.  Uttley,  Secretary  of  the  American  Library 
Association,  who  informed  me  that  the  foregoing  facts  were  exactly  true 
and  that  the  acting  librarian  was  the  chief  sufferer  by  this  remarkable 
decision  of  the  State  Commission, 

In  the  face  of  all  this  evidence  who  can  say  that  the  trial  boards  and  the 
exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  Commission  over  removals  have  promoted 
good  administration? 


INDEX 

Addresses,  see  Speeches 

"Advance  of  Competitive  System,"  199,  311  to  320 

Agricultural  Credits  Bill,  excludes  competition,  229 

Ambassadorships  to  campaign  contributors,  230  to  232,  253,  254.     See 

Van  Alen 
Annuity  plan  for  superannuation,  107 
"Anthem  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission,"  194  to  198,  312 
Anti-imperialism,  125,  126 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  i 

Appointments  for  spoils  illegal  at  common  law,  31,  32 
Apportionment,  168,  169 
Appropriations  aided  by  patronage,  74 
Arthur,  Chester  A.,  President,  supports  civil  service  law,  317 
Australian  ballot,  analogies  with  competitive  system,  9 
Australian  superannuation  system,  108 

Baltimore  post  office,  scandals  in,  289,  290 

Baltimore  reformers'  conference,  49;  speech  at,  268  to  274 

Beveridge,  Albert  J.,  speech  at  Bloomington  on  Insane  Hospital,  34 

Black,  James  E.,  counsel  in  suit  against  Insane  Hospital  trustees,  30 

Blackburn,  Joseph  Clay  S.,  senator,  criticizes  Foulke  and  Swift;  letter  to, 

^,  .  44,  45 

Blaine,  James  G.,  nominated,  scandals  and  refusal  to  support,  10,  11; 
George  Wm.  Curtis  on,  47;  declares  himself  candidate  against  Harri- 
son, 88 

Blaine  and  Cleveland  campaign,  platform,  297,  298 

"Blanket  Order"  of  Cleveland  extending  classification,  104,  105 

Bliss,  Cornelius,  Secretary  of  Interior,  complains  of  civil  service  extensions, 
114,  116,  117 

Bonaparte,  Chas.  J.,  first  acquaintance  with,  14;  presides  at  Baltimore 
conference,  49;  on  Investigating  Committee  in  Harrison's  administra- 
tion, 57;  satire  at  League  dinners,  91, 92;  Secretary  of  Navy,  Attorney- 
General,  205;  on  removals  of  employees,  330 

Bonnell,  John  R.,  collector  Terre  Haute,  investigated,  186,  187 

"Bread  and  Butter  Brigade"  under  President  Johnson,  6 

Bribery  at  common  law  defined,  309 

Brief  against  taking  power  of  removal  from  appointing  officers,  326  to 
336 

Brown  bill  introduced  in  Indiana  Senate,  16;  repealed,  35 

Bryan,  Wm.  J.,  presidential  campaign  of  1896,  no  to  112;  opposes  com- 
petitive system,  no  to  112;  campaign  of  1900,  125;  spoils  in  Santo 
Domingo,  229  to  230;  Vick  letter,  id. 

Building  department,  need  of  experts,  322,  323 

Burleson,  Albert  S.,  Postmaster-General,  soHcits  congressional  recommen- 
dations for  fourth-class  postmasters,  234;  makes  political  appoint- 

aa  337 


338  INDEX 

ments,  235  to  237;  also  in  free  delivery  service,  238  to  242;  speech  at 

League  meeting,  249  to  254;  recommends  classification  of  postmasters, 

251,  252,  255,  256;  inconsistency  of,  256,  257 
Burt,  Silas,  revises  reform  bill,  7;  surveyor  of  New  York  removed  by 

Harrison,  51;  on  superannuation  committee,  106 
Butterworth,  Benj.,  Commissioner  of  Patents,  complains  of  civil  service 

extensions,  114,  115 
Byrnes,  Police  Inspector,  recognizes  criminals  in  census  takers,  67 

Calhoun,  John  C,  on  spoils  system,  315 

Campaign  contributors  receive  ambassadorships,  230  to  232;  253;  ap- 
pointed to  office  by  Harrison,  293,  294;  see  Van  Alen  case,  loi,  102 

Catherwood,  Robt.,  prepares  model  civil  service  law,  223;  remarks  on  Chi- 
cago police,  335 

Census,  investigation  of,  64  to  85;  letter  to  Harrison,  64,  65;  correspondence 
with  Superintendent  Porter,  68  to  y2\  census  of  19 10,  84;  transfers  of 
clerks  prevented  by  Roosevelt  in,  80  to  82 ;  Harrison's  refusal  to  clas- 
sify, 288;  permanent  bureau  classified,  164;  Taft's  action  regarding,  213 

Chicago  poHce,  332,  335 

Chicago  removal  rule,  331  to  336 

Choate,  Joseph  H.,  elected  League  President  in  1907,  126 

Chronicle,  Civil  Service,  45 

City  Government,  civil  service  in,  219  to  225;  experts  in,  321  to  325 

Civil  service  in  Indiana,  bill  introduced,  12;  Indiana  Reform  Association, 
.  .^5      . 

Civil  Service  Commission,  8;  personal  experiences  on,  146  to  161;  reforms 
by,  under  Roosevelt,  162  to  192;  under  Wilson,  232,  233;  examinations 
for  rural  free  deHvery  prepared  by,  238  to  240;  keeps  secret  eligible 
lists,  242  to  248;  power  over  removals,  brief  opposing,  326  to  336 

Civil  Service  Commissioners,  National  Assembly  of,  223  to  225;  on  model 
law,  224  to  225 

Civil  service  law,  3,  7,  8,  10,  311;  excellencies  of,  316;  in  states  and  cities', 
218,  222 

Civil  Service  Reform  Association  of  New  York  prepares  reform  bill,  7 

Civil  Service  Reform  League,  see  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League 

Clark,  Champ,  criticisms  of  civil  service,  152,  153 

Clarkson,  J.  S.,  Assistant  Postmaster -General,  spoilsman,  51;  attempt  to 
forestall  investigation,  60;  removals  by,  on  secret  charges,  62,  63; 
appointed  surveyor  in  New  York,  154;  change  of  views,  155;  political 
removals,  291 

Classified  service,  political  removals  in,  42 ;  railway  mail  service  included, 
50,  51;  census  clerks  included,  84;  Harrison's  failures  to  extend,  87; 
free  delivery  post  offices,  90;  Cleveland's  extensions,  104,  105;  McKin- 
ley's  withdrawals,  113  to  118,  122,  123;  Philippine  service,  123;  Roose- 
velt's extensions,  162  to  167,  211,  212;  removals  from,  169  to  174; 
promotions  in,  174  to  176;  political  activity  in,  176  to  178;  lobbying  in, 
177  to  179;  special  exceptions  in,  180  to  184;  Taft's  extensions  of,  213; 
fourth  class  postmasters,  212,  213;  in  states  and  cities,  219  to  222; 
laws  excepting  places  from  under  Wilson,  227  to  229;  presidential 
postmasters  included,  254  to  257;  growth  of,  258;  importance  of  ex- 
tending, 305 

Clay,  Henry,  on  spoils  system,  315 

Cleveland,  Grover,  nominated,  10;  supported  by  reformers,  11;  dissatis- 
faction with,  13;  approves  removals  on  secret  charges,  37  to  41;  letter 
to  Geo.  Wm.  Curtis,  37;  interview  regarding  secret  removals,  39,  40; 
supported  by  Eastern  independents,  47;  second  term,  94  to  105;  re- 
fusal to  reappoint  previous  appointees,  94,  95;  nominates  Van  Alen 


INDEX  339 

minister  to  Italy,  lOO;  appointment  criticized,  102;  services  to  refonn, 
104,  105;  extends  classified  service,  104,  105;  order  forbidding  political 
activity,  176;  his  administration  reviewed,  317;  declarations  in  favor  of 
reform,  298;  review  of  beginning  of  his  2d  administration,  304  to  305 

Cleveland  and  Blaine  campaign,  1884,  platforms  and  promises  in,  297  to 
299 

Cleveland  and  Harrison  campaign,  1892,  platforms  and  promises  in,  300 
to  304 

Coercion  of  employees  in  Philadelphia  post  ofl&ce,  130,  131;  charges  of, 
against  Roosevelt,  207  to  211 

Colorado  civil  service  law,  219 

Commercial  attaches  excluded  from  competition,  228  to  229 

Common  law  on  spoils  appointments,  31,  32 

Commonwealth  Club,  New  York,  speech  at,  56 

Competitive  system,  nature  of,  8,  9,  10;  extensions  justified  by  public 
opinion,  221,  222;  in  higher  positions,  221,  222;  advance  of,  311  to  320 

Congressional  patronage,  4  to  6;  in  Indiana,  33,  34,  57  to  59;  in  census,  64 
to  83;  attempted  in  census  of  1910,  ^2  to  85;  efforts  to  secure,  147;  in 
rural  free  delivery,  238,  240  to  242 

Connecticut  civil  service  law,  219 

Consular  service,  political  changes  under  McKinley,  120,  121;  condition  in 
1902,  151  to  153;  reforms  in,  153,  154;  kept  out  of  politics  by  Taft, 
213;  protected  by  Wilson  and  by  Stone-Flood  Bill,  232 

Controversies  with  critics,  153  to  157 

Cooley,  Alford  W.,  appointed  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  194;  resigns, 
205 

Corruption,  remedies  for,  8,  9 

Courtesy  of  Senate,  282,  283 

Coyne,  F.  E.,  Chicago  Postmaster,  exonerated,  186 

Craven,  Herman  W.,  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  232,  233;  on  secrecy  of 
eligible  list,  244  to  246 

Critics,  controversies  with,  154  to  157 

Crumpacker,  Edgar  D.,  Congressman,  introduces  patronage  census  bill, 
82 

Cuban  employees  classified,  166,  167 

Ctmimins,  Albert  B.,  Senator,  letter  to  Civil  Service  Commission  on  rural 
free  delivery,  253 

Curley,  James  N.,  convicted  of  impersonation,  185;  mayor  of  Boston,  id. 

Currency  Act,  excludes  competitive  places,  228 

Curtis,  Geo.  Wm.,  leader  in  reform,  2;  on  Grant's  Advisory  Board,  7,  311; 
revises  Pendleton  bill,  7;  describes  spoils  conditions,  8;  annual  ad- 
dresses to  Civil  Service  League,  14;  letter  from  Cleveland  to,  37;  letter 
to  Foulke  on  Harrison's  nomination,  47;  Foulke's  interview  at  New 
Brighton,  48 ;  letter  to  Foulke  on  census  correspondence,  72 ;  death  of, 
90;  characteristics,  90;  head  of  League,  speeches,  91;  at  Friends' 
Seminary,  92,  93;  eloquence,  315;  on  removal  rule,  327;  an  apprecia- 
tion of,  286,  287 

Cushing,  Marshall,  secretary  to  Wanamaker,  circular  letter,  55,  56 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  on  Investigating  Committee  in  Harrison's  administration, 
37;  on  superannuation  committee,  106;  president  of  League,  19 13, 
126;  services  to  reform,  126;  investigates  Hicks  case,  130,  131 
"Deserving  Democrats,"  Bryan's  letter,  229 
Dillon,  Moses,  Collector  El  Paso,  136;  removed,  185 
Diplomatic  appointments,  merit  system  extended  to,  213,  214 
Discretionary  appointments,  4;  eliminated  by  competitive  system,  10 
Dowling,  James,  accused  of  bribery,  appointed,  40;  discharged,  41 


340  INDEX 

Doyle,  J.  T., Secretary  of  United  States  Civil  Service  Commission, prevented 
by  Hicks  from  investigating,  131;  characteristics  of,  161;  New  York 
Sun  article  on,  196  to  197 
Du  Bois,  Fred.  T.,  Senator,  attacks  Civil  Service  Commission,  190,  191 
Durand,  E.  Dana,  Director  of  Census,  prescribes  competitive  examinations 
for  special  agents,  84 

Eaton,  Dorman  B.,  leader  in  reform,  2,  3;  on  Grant's  advisory  board,  7; 
work  on  civil  service  of  Great  Britain,  7,  315;  drafts  reform  bill,  7, 

ji;.Ei3i6;  President  of  first  Commission,  8;  moves  for  McKinley  investiga- 
tion committee,  114;  dies,  characterization  of,  124,  125;  prepares  rules, 
PP  316;  administers  the  law,  317;  on  removal  rule,  327 

Elections,  influenced  by  spoils,  6 

Eligible  lists  kept  secret  by  Civil  Service  Commission,  242  to  248 

Eliot,  Chas.  W.,  elected  League  president,  1908,  126 

El  Paso  case,  136 

Employees;  House  of  Representatives,  report  on  patronage  system,  137  to 
140,  associations  of,  177  to  179 

Enforcement  of  law,  by  Roosevelt,  184  to  188 

Evening  Post,  New  York,  on  Van  Alen  case,  102 

Evidence,  employees  required  to  furnish,  168,  169 

Examinations,  for  statistical  compiler  set  aside,  186;  non-assembled,  324, 

325 
Exceptions,  special,  180  to  184 
Experts  in  city  government,  221,  321  to  325 

Fairlie,  Prof.  John  A.,  on  Chicago  removal  rule,  332 

Fassett,  J.  S.,  Collector,  New  York,  291,  292 

Federal  Reserve  Board,  places  excepted,  228 

Federal  Service  in  Indiana,  abuses  in,  41  to  44 

Feudalism  in  office  holding,  278 

Filene  Sons  Company,  removals  of  employees,  329 

Financial  department,  need  of  experts,  323 

Fish  Commission  classified,  288 

Fixed  laws  and  rules  necessary  to  civil  service  reform,  262,  263;  character 
of,  264,  265 

Fletcher,  Dr.  Wm.  B.,  Superintendent  of  Indiana  Hospital  for  Insane,  17, 
20;  statement  regarding  diseased  hogs,  24,  25;  testifies  to  hospital 
abuses,  27 

Fort  Wayne  post  office,  investigation,  98,  99 

Forum  article  on  Van  Alen,  102,  306  to  310 

Foulke,  W.  D.,  in  Indiana  Senate,  10;  opposes  Blaine,  10,  11 ;  introduces 
Indiana  civil  service  bill,  12;  joins  National  Civil  Service  League  and 
Indiana  Association,  14;  investigates  Indiana  Insane  Hospital,  16  to 
36;  and  removals  on  secret  charges,  37  to  41;  correspondence  with 
Senator  Blackburn,  44,  45;  with  Benj.  Harrison,  46,  47,  87,  88;  with 
Geo.Wm.  Curtis,  47,48,72;  acquaintance  with  Roosevelt,  52 ;  interview 
with  Wanamaker,  54  to  56;  chairman  of  investigating  committee, 
Harrison's  administration,  57  to  72;  census  investigating  committee,  73 
to  84;  address  to  Indiana  Senate,  260  to  267;  to  Baltimore  conference, 
268  to  274;  to  Social  Science  Congress  on  Philosophy  of  Spoils  Sys- 
tem, 87,  275  to  279;  on  Secret  Sessions  of  the  Senate,  87,  280  to  285; 
to  Massachusetts  Reform  Club  on  Harrison's  record,  89,  286  to  294; 
on  platforms  and  promises,  94,  295  to  305;  investigates  Terre  Haute 
post  office,  96  to  99;  Van  Alen  case,  99  to  103;  Forimi  Article,  306  to 
310;  correspondence  with  W.  Q,  Gresham,  100,  loi;  with  Lucius  B. 
Swift,  103, 104;  on  superannuation,  106  to  109;  address  in  Bryan  cam- 


INDEX  341 

paign,  112;  correspondence  with  Schurz,  116  to  119;  chairman  investi- 
gating committee  McKinley's  administration,  114  to  116,  119,  125 
to  143;  correspondence  with  McKinley,  122;  interview  with  McKinley, 
127,  128;  appointed  Civil  Service  Commissioner  by  Roosevelt,  145; 
work  on  Commission,  146  to  161;  reforms  accomplished,  162  to  189; 
criticisms  of  in  Senate,  190  to  192;  resigns,  192;  address  on  advance  of 
competitive  system,  311  to  320;  burlesque  in  New  York  Sun,  194  to 
198;  defends  Roosevelt  on  coercion  charges,  207  to  211;  investigates 
Elam  Neal  case,  215  to  217;  President  of  National  Municipal  League, 
219;  address  on  "Experts  in  City  Government, "  320  to  324;  argument 
on  removal  rule,  326  to  333;  correspondence  with  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission on  concealment  of  eligible  lists,  243,  247,  248 

Fourth-class  postmasters,  made  permanent,  167, 168;  classified  by  Roosevelt 
212;  by  Taft,  213;  re-examined  under  Wilson,  233,  250,  252;  recom- 
mended by  Congressmen,  234,  251;  political  appointments,  235  to  237, 
252,  253;  eligible  lists  of,  concealed,  244 

Free  delivery  post  offices  classified  by  Harrison,  90 

Gage,  Lyman  J.,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  upholds  McKinley's  exceptions, 

122 
Galloway,  Chas.  M.,  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  232 
Gapen,  Philip  M.,  Trustee  of  Indiana  Hospital,  17;  neglects  duties,  19,  20; 

removed  by  Governor  Gray,  29,  30;  removal  illegal,  30;  takes  position 

with  Sullivan,  30 
Garfield,  James  A.,  assassinated,  7;  leader  in  civil  service  reform,  315 
Garfield,  James  R.,  appointed  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  158 
Garfield  and  Hancock  campaign,  platforms  in,  297 
Gerard,  James  W.,  Ambassador  to  Germany,  231 
Gilman,  Daniel  C,  elected  League  president,  126 

Godkin,  E.  L.,  editor  Evening  Post,  anecdote  illustrating  political  recom- 
mendations, 93 
Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  President,  appoints  Civil  Service  Advisory  Board,  7,  31 1 
Grant  and  Greeley  campaign,  platforms  in,  296 
Gray,  Finly  P.,  Congressman,  recommendations  for  rural  free  delivery, 

240,  241 
Gray,  Isaac  P.,  Governor  of  Indiana,  removes  trustees  of  Insane  Hospital, 

29,30 
Greene,  H.  F.,  appointed  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  194;  displaced  by 

Taft,  214;  investigates  Neal  case,  216 
Gresham,  Walter  Q.,  Secretary  of  State,  correspondence  with  on  Van  Alen 

case,  100,  loi 

Hale,  Eugene,  Senator,  investigation  of  secret  charges,  41 
Hall,  Benton  J.,  Commissioner  of  Patents,  59 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  nominated  for  presidency,  34;  elected,  35,  48;  civil 
service  under,  46  to  72;  letter  to  W.  D.  Foulke,  46,  47;  supported  by 
Indiana  reformers,  47;  interview  regarding  civil  service,  48,  49;  makes 
removals  on  secret  charges,  62,  63;  Foulke's  letter  to  him  regarding 
census,  64,  65;  close  of  administration,  86  to  90;  Foulke's  letter  to  on 
civil  service  extensions  and  reply,  87,  88;  Foulke's  speech  at  Reform 
Club  criticizing  his  record,  89;  defeated  for  President,  90;  promises  of 
reform,  268,  272;  his  shortcomings,  287  to  294 
Harrison  and  Cleveland  campaign,  1888;  platforms  and  promises,  299,  300 
Hay,  John,  Secretary  of  State,  discloses  abuses  in  consular  service,  121 
Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  President,  297;  promotes  reform,  311 
Heath,  Perry,  Assistant  Postmaster-General,  evades  civil  service  law,  132 
Hendricks,  Thomas  A.,  hears  argument  on  civil  service  bill,  12 


342  INDEX 

Hesing,  Washington,  Chicago  postmaster  speaks  on  Bryan  campaign,  113 

Hicks,  Thos.  L.,  Postmaster  of  Philadelphia,  report  of  investigation  com- 
mittee on,  130,  131 

House  of  Representatives,  employees  of,  137  to  140 

Hovey,  Alvin  P.,  Governor  of  Indiana,  35;  asks  investigation  Insane  Hos- 
pital, 35    ...      . 

Rowland,  Louis,  in  organization  of  Indiana  Association,  15;  investigates 
Insane  Hospital,  18;  answers  Dr.  Harrison,  22;  conducts  legislative 
investigation,  27 

Illinois  civil  service  law,  219;  removal  rule  in,  333,  335,  336 

Income  tax  law,  competitive  places  excluded,  228 

Indian  Bureau  under  McKinley,  129,  130;  classified,  166;  teachers  and 
superintendents  classified,  288 

Indiana  civil  service  bill  introduced,  argument  and  objections,  12;  260  to 
267 

Indiana  Civil  Service  Reform  Association,  organized,  15;  investigates  In- 
sane Hospital,  16  to  36;  report  on,  20,  21;  discussion  of  Republican 
promises,  48;  investigates  federal  service,  37  to  45 

Indiana  Hospital  for  Insane,  16  to  36;  suit  to  remove  trustees,  30  to  34 

Indiana  House  of  Representatives  investigates  hospital  and  passes  civil 
service  bill,  29 

Indiana  Senate,  service  in,  10,  11;  civil  service  bill  introduced,  12;  exoner- 
ates Insane  Hospital  management,  26  to  28 

Indianapolis  Journal,  criticizes  Sentinel,  23,  25;  ridicules  exoneration  of 
hospital,  28 

Indianapolis  post  office,  investigation  by  Roosevelt,  52 

Indianapolis  Sentinel  defends  hospital  management,  21,  26,  27;  refuses  to 
publish  committee's  reply  on  hospital,  23;  attacks  committee,  24; 
and  Civil  Service  Association,  29 

Indianapolis  Star,  charges  Roosevelt  with  coercing  office  holders,  208  to  210 

Insane  Hospital,  Indiana,  16  to  36 

Insular  service  classified,  164 

International  Harvester  Company,  removals  of  employees  in,  328 

Investigations,  Indiana  Hospital  for  Insane,  16  to  36;  of  federal  service, 
37  to  45;  of  Indianapolis  post  office,  52  to  54;  of  Harrison's  administra- 
tion, 57  to  72;  of  removals  on  secret  charges,  61  to  63;  of  political 
changes  in  post  offices,  63,  64;  of  census,  64  to  85;  of  Terre  Haute  post 
office,  96  to  98;  of  McKinley 's  administration,  129  to  143;  Indian 
Agents,  129;  Hicks  case,  130  to  133;  laborers,  133;  Sapp  case,  133; 
El  Paso  case,  136;  employees  of  House  of  Representatives,  137;  special 
legislation,  140;  Jersey  City  post  office,  141;  by  Civil  Service  Commis- 
sion under  Roosevelt,  184  to  188;  Quay  case,  187,  188;  of  Elam  Neal, 
215  to  217;  of  fourth-class  post  offices,  236,  237;  of  rural  free  delivery, 
238  to  242 

Italy,  Van  Alen  appointed  minister  to,  100 

Jackson,  Andrew,  3,  4;  spoils  system  attributed  to,  276 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  political  changes  by,  4 

Jenckes,  Thomas  Allen,  introduces  civil  service  reform  bill,  6,  311 

Jersey  City  post  office,  investigation  and  report,  141  to  143 

Johnson,  Andrew,  promotes  spoils,  6 

Johnson,  Francis,  Indiana  Senator,  25,  26 

Jones,  Aquilla,  Indianapolis  Postmaster,  political  removals  by,  41  to  43 

Labor  service,  registration  of,  165,  166;  in  War  Department,  133;  in  navy, 
288 


INDEX  343 

Laborers,  doing  classified  work  in  Philadelphia  post  office,  130,  131;  illegal 
employment  of,  133;  prohibition  of  classified  work  by,  168,  171,  172; 
classified,  172 

Libel  suit  against  Foulke  and  Michener,  30,  31 

Library,  Illinois  state,  removals  in,  335,  336 

Life  tenure,  327 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  on  spoils  system,  6 

Lobbying  by  employees  forbidden,  168,  179,  180 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  Senator,  letter  to  from  Carroll  D.  Wright  on  census, 

75 
Low,  Seth,  Mayor  of  New  York,  supports  Cleveland,  1888,  47;  on  removals 

of  employees,  330 
Lowell,  A.  Lawrence,  on  removals  of  employees,  329,  330 
Lyman,  Chas.,  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  52 

Mcllhenny,  John  A.,  Commissioner,  appointed,  205;  justifies  secrecy  of 
eligible  Hsts,  244  to  246 

McKinley,  Wm.  A.,  President,  dissatisfaction  with,  13;  civil  service  plank, 
47;  attitude  to  civil  service,  113  to  123;  order  against  secret  removals, 
119;  lax  enforcement  of  law,  119  to  122;  130  to  137;  141,  142;  order 
excepting  positions  from  classification,  122,  123;  campaign  of  1900, 
125;  characteristics,  127;  investigating  committee,  129  to  143;  ad- 
ministration reviewed,  317,  318 

McVeagh,  Wayne,  aids  in  revising  reform  bill,  7 ;  on  investigating  committee, 
Harrison's  administration,  57 

Marshall  Field  &  Company  on  removal  rule,  328 

Marshall,  Thos.  R.,  Vice-President,  gives  casting  vote  to  exclude  competi- 
tion, 228;  "snivel  service"  speech,  255 

Maryland  Civil  Service  Association,  14;  scandal  in  census,  77  to  80 

Massachusetts  civil  service  law,  219 

Massachusetts  Reform  Club  address  on  Harrison's  record,  89 

Merriam,  W.  R.,  Director  of  Census  of  1900,  76,  77;  continues  patronage, 
id. 

Michener,  Louis  T,,  Indiana  Attorney  General  brings  suit  to  remove  trus- 
tees of  Insane  Hospital,  30;  sued  for  libel,  30,  31 

Minneapolis  convention  controlled  by  place-holders,  88,  292,  293 

Model  charter  of  Municipal  League,  222,  223 

Model  civil  service  law,  223  to  225;  removal  rule,  326  to  336 

Morgan,  Edward  M.,  Postmaster  of  New  York,  displaced  by  politician,  248, 
249 

Morgenthau,  Henry,  appointed  ambassador  to  Turkey,  230,  231 

Morton,  Oliver  T.,  in  organization  of  Indiana  Association,  15;  investigates 
Indiana  hospital,  17,  18,  22,  27 

Motor  rural  carrier  service,  238 

Mudd,  S.  E.,  Congressman,  Maryland  census  scandal,  77,  78 

Municipal  League,  National,  see  National  Municipal  League 

Municipalities,  civil  service  in,  219  to  225 

National  Assembly  of  Civil  Service  Commissioners,  proposed  model  civil 
service  law,  223  to  225 

National  Civil  Service  Reform  League,  1,2;  organizes  and  advocates  reform 
bill,  8;  meetings  at  Newport,  14;  resolutions  on  Van  Alen  case,  10 1; 
on  removal  rule,  327;  considers  model  law,  224,  225;  protests  against 
concealment  of  eligible  lists,  243  to  248;  report  on  experts,  221;  cor- 
respondence with  President  Wilson,  244  to  246;  New  Haven  meeting 
and  Burleson's  speech,  249  to  254;  addresses  delivered  to,  on  Senate 


344  INDEX 

secret  sessions,  87, 280;  on  platforms  and  promises,  295;  on  advance  of 

competitive  system,  311;  on  city  government  by  experts,  321.     See 

Investigations 
National  Municipal  League,  presidency  of,  219,  220;  resign,  223;  report  on 

experts,  22 1 ;  prepares  model  charter  but  disapproves  features  in  model 

civil  service  law,  225 
Navy,  registration  of  laborers  in,  86 
Neal,  Elam,  Collector  of  Internal  Revenue,  political  activity  and  coercion, 

215  to  218 
Negro  question  in  civil  service,  149,  150 
New  Jersey  civil  service  law,  219 
Newport  Herald,  controversy  with,  156 
New  York  census  enumeration  erroneous,  67 
New  York  Civil  Service  Reform  Association  prepares  reform  bill,  7 
New  York,  introduces  spoils,  5;  passes  civil  service  law,  219 
"Norton  letter,"  214,  215 

"Offensive  partisanship,"  38,  39;  under  Harrison,  64 
Ojffice  seekers  under  Wilson,  226,  227 
Ohio  civil  service  law,  219 

Parker,  Alton  B.,  200 

Party  government,  one  cause  of  spoils  system,  4;  its  functions,  276 

Patent  office,  report  of  investigating  committee,  59,  60 

Patronage,  congressional,  57  to  59 ;  books  of  account  of  census  appointments, 

73 f  74;  report  of  congressional  committee,  57,  58,  59;  in  census  of  19 10, 

82  to  85;  in  fourth-class  postmasterships,  233  to  237;  in  rural  free 

delivery,  238  to  242 
Payne,  Henry  C.,  Postmaster  General,  155 

Pearson,  H.  G.,  Postmaster  of  New  York,  displaced  by  Harrisc.i,  51 
Pendleton  Law,  3,  7;  passed,  8,  311;  provides  machinery  for  competitive 

system,  10 
Penfield,  Fred.  C,  Ambassador  to  Austria,  231 
Pension  examining  surgeons,  law  evaded,  120 
Pension  office,  political  lists  in,  1 15 
Pensions,  civil  service,  107,  108;  see  Superannuation 
Perkins,  Geo.  W.,  on  removals  of  employees,  328,  329 
Perrault,  Joseph,  Surveyor  General  of  Idaho,  190 
Philippine  civil  service,  remonstrance  to  McKinley,  122;  civil  service  law 

and  its  provisions,  123;  aided  by  Federal  Commission,  164,  165;  history 

of,  164,  165 
Platforms  and  promises,  94,  294  to  305 
Piatt,  Thomas  C,  Senator,  criticizes  Harrison,  88;  controls  New  York 

patronage,  291 
Political  activities,  Sapp  case,  134,  135;  in  Philadelphia  post  office,  130,  131 ; 

restricted,  168;  176  to  179 
Political  changes  in  post  offices  under  Harrison,  63,  64;  in  El  Paso  case, 

136;  testimonials,  93;  corruption  removed  by  civil  service  reform,  266, 

267;  appointments  in  fourth-class  postmasterships,  235  to  237;  in  rural 

free  delivery,  238  to  242 
Porter,  Robert  P.,  Superintendent  of  Census,  establishes  patronage  system, 

65,  66;  public  correspondence  with,  68  to  72;  patronage  books  of 

account  with  Congressmen,  73,  74;  converted  to  civil  service  system, 

75»76 
Porto  Rico,  civil  service,  interview  with  McKinley,  127;  classification  of 

service,  164 
Post  office  scandals  imder  Roosevelt,  punished,  188,  189 


INDEX  345 

Post  office  transfers  to  evade  law,  120 

Postmaster-General,  see  Wanamaker,  Payne,  Burleson,  Chas.  Emory 
Smith,  Vilas 

Postmasters,  election  among  patrons,  58,  59;  forced  resignations,  61 

Postmasters,  Assistant,  classified  by  Taft,  213;  see  Presidential  Postmasters 

"Presidential  appointments  for  sale";  article  in  Forum,  306  to  310 

Presidential  postmasters,  report  of  investigating  committee,  60,  61 ;  classi- 
fied, 255  to  257 

President's  power  over  civil  service,  269 

Probation,  265 

Proctor,  John  R.,  President  of  Civil  Service  Commission,  145,  317;  personal 
association  on  commission,  158,  159;  death  and  characteristics,  199, 
200 

Promotions,  174  to  176;  through  influence,  prohibited;  regulations,  175 

Quay,  Matthew  S.,  Senator,  concerned  in  political  assessments,  187,  188 
Quincy,  Josiah,  Assistant  Secretary  of  State,  loot  of  consular  service  under, 
95,  96,  121 

Railway  mail  service,  classification  of,  50;  looting  of,  51 

Railways,  removal  rule  in,  328 

Raines,  Congressman,  asks  poll  lists  of  census  enumerators,  66 

Raum,  Green  B.,  Commissioner  of  Pensions,  51 

Reform  Club,  Massachusetts,  address  on  Harrison's  record,  89,  286  to  294 

Reinstatements,  168,  171 

Removal  rule  in  model  law,  224,  225,  326  to  336 

Removals,  upon  secret  charges  under  Cleveland,  37  to  41;  under  Harrison, 
61  to  63;  in  Fort  Wayne  post  office,  99;  aboHshed  by  Postmaster-Gen- 
eral Bissell,  99;  in  Terre  Haute  post  office,  96  to  98;  forbidden  by 
McKinley's  order,  1 19;  rule  regulating,  169  to  174;  brief  against  taking 
power  of,  from  appointing  officers,  326  to  336 

Representatives,  control  of  appointments  by,  5, 6;  patronage  among  House 
employees,  137  to  140 

Retirement  annuities,  107  to  109 

Retrospect  of  various  administrations,  257,  258 

Roberts,  Geo.  H.,  Brooklyn  Postmaster,  exonerated,  186 

Rockhill,  Wm.,  displaced  from  Turkish  embassy,  230 

Rodenberg,  W.  A.,  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  146,  resigns,  158 

Rogers,  Sherman  S.,  on  investigating  committee,  Harrison's  administra- 
tion, 57 

Roosevelt,  Theo.,  leader  in  reform,  2;  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  52,  317; 
investigates  Indianapolis  post  office,  52 ;  charges  against  by  Washing- 
ton Post,  53;  excursions  with,  57;  prevents  transfers  of  census  clerks, 
80  to  82;  urges  competitive  system  for  census,  82, 83;  vetoes  census  bill, 
83 ;  after-dinner  remarks,  92 ;  investigates  Terre  Haute  post  office,  98 ; 
administration  of,  144  to  161;  reforms  accomplished  by  162  to  189, 
204;  contrasted  with  McKinley,  144;  designs  for  reform  in  civil  service, 
144;  appoints  Foulke  Commissioner,  145;  order  restricting  political 
activity,  176  to  179;  campaign  of  1904,  200;  characteristics,  201  to 
204;  accused  of  coercion,  207  to  211 ;  manner  of  making  appointments, 
209,  210;  the  things  accomplished  as  President,  210,  21 1 ;  results  in  the 
civil  service,  211,212;  progress  during  administration,  318;  letter  on  de- 
priving appointing  officers  of  power  of  removal,  330;  retrospect,  257, 258 

Root,  Elihu,  stops  loot  of  places  in  War  Department,  120;  reclassifies  fidd 
branches,  163 

Rotation  in  office,  5 

Rules,  changes  in  by  Roosevelt,  168  to  180;  codification  of,  18O,  316, 317 


346  INDEX 

Rural  free  delivery  service,  classified,  162;  political  manipulation  of,  238 
to  242,  253;  eligible  lists  concealed,  242  to  248 

Salaries  withheld  from  illegal  appointees,  168,  169 

Santo  Domingo,  spoils  in,  229,  230 

Saltonstall,  Leverett,  Collector  at  Boston,  removed  by  Harrison,  51 

Sapp,  C.  E.,  Collector,  levies  campaign  assessments,  133,  134;  political 
activities,  134  to  136;  resigns,  185;  convicted,  id. 

Schurz,  Carl,  leader  in  reform,  2,  6;  establishes  competitive  examinations 
in  Interior  Department,  7;  revises  reform  bill,  7;  criticizes  Minne- 
apolis convention,  88,  89;  correspondence  with  Foulke  on  civil  service 
under  McKinley,  116  to  119;  resigns  presidency  of  League,  125,  126; 
opposes  special  exceptions,  182;  death  and  characteristics,  205,  206; 
advocate  of  reform  in  Senate,  315 

Secret  charges,  removals  on,  under  Cleveland,  37  to  41,  304;  removals  on, 
under  Harrison,  61  to  63;  abolished  by  Postmaster-General  Bissell, 
99;  forbidden  by  McKinley's  order,  119;  in  Senate,  284,  285;  rule  regu- 
lating, 169  to  174 

Self,  C.  O.,  removed  for  refusing  to  testify,  185 

Senate,  advice  and  consent  of,  4;  secret  sessions  of,  280  to  285;  courtesy  of, 
282,  283;  attack  in,  on  Civil  Service  Commission,  190  to  192 

Senate,  Indiana,  service  in,  10, 1 1 ;  introduce  civil  service  bill,  12 ;  resignation, 
petitioned  for,  11;  Brown  bill  introduced  in,  16;  secures  hospital  pa- 
tronage, 18;  committee  exonerates  hospital,  28 

Sharp,  Robt.  S.,  appointed  chief  post  office  inspector,  215;  resigns,  249 

Sherman,  John,  Secretary  of  State,  complains  of  civil  service  extensions, 
115,  116 

Smith,  Chas.  Emory,  Postmaster-General,  exonerates  Postmaster  Hicks, 
132 

Smith,  Hoke,  Secretary  of  Interior,  95;  Senator,  makes  political  appoint- 
ments, 237 

Social  Service  Congress  at  Saratoga,  address  to,  87,  275  to  279 

"Song  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission,"  194  to  198 

Spanish  War  service  excepted,  120;  employees  classified,  163 

Special  exceptions,  180  to  184 

Special  legislation,  exceptions  to  competitive  system  in,  140,  141 

Speeches,  before  Indiana  Senate  in  1885,261  to  267;  at  Baltimore  conference, 
1889,  268  to  274;  at  Social  Science  Congress,  Saratoga,  1891,  275  to 
279;  on  secret  sessions  of  the  Senate,  280  to  285;  on  Harrison's  record 
before  Boston  Reform  Club,  286  to  294;  on  platforms  and  promises, 
295  to  305;  on  advance  of  competitive  system,  311  to  320;  on  city 
government  by  experts,  321  to  325 

Spoils  system,  origin  and  development  of,  3  to  8;  described  by  G.  W.  Curtis, 
8;  evils  of,  261,  262,  277,  278;  methods  of  distribution,  277;  illegal  at 
common  law,  31,  32;  in  Santo  Domingo,  229,  230 

Spooner,  John  C,  Senator,  correspondence  with,  190,  191 

Star,  Indianapolis,  charges  Roosevelt  with  coercing  office  holders,  208  to  210 

State  civil  service  laws,  219,  220 

Storey,  Moorfield,  on  Chicago  removal  rule,  330 

Street  cleaning  department,  need  of  experts  in,  321,  322 

Sullivan,  John  E.,  contractor,  furnishes  hospital  supplies,  19;  employs 
Gapen,  secures  contracts,  30;  fails  in  business,  flees  to  Canada,  35 

Sumner,  Charles,  introduced  civil  service  reform  bill,  1864,  6 

Sun,  New  York,  describes  Indiana  Mugwump  party,  13;  burlesque  on 
commission,  194  to  198 

Superannuation,  106  to  109;  319,  320 

Swift,  Lucius  B.,  political  views,  characteristics,   12,  13,  14;  organizes 


INDEX  347 

Indiana  Association,  15;  correspondence  with  Vilas,  40,  41 ;  investigates 
Indiana  federal  service,  41  to  44;  criticizes  Cleveland,  44;  appears  be- 
fore Senate  Civil  Service  Committee,  44;  edits  Civil  Service  Chronicle, 
45 ;  Terre  Haute  post  office  investigation,  97, 98 ;  Fort  Wayne  post  office 
investigation,  98,  99;  on  Van  Alen  case,  103,  104;  on  feudalism  in  office 
holding,  278 

Taft,  W.  H.,  President,  would  veto  patronage  census  bill,  84;  order  to  ab- 
stain from  politics  in  census,  84;  campaign  for  Presidency,  207;  admin- 
istration, 213  to  218;  services  to  civil  service  reform,  213,214,  218; 
laxity  in  enforcing  rules,  215  to  217;  results  of  administration  in  civil 
service,  218;  on  removals  of  employees,  330 

Taft  campaign,  207 

Tanner,  James,  corporal.  Commissioner  of  Pensions,  51 

Taylor,  Professor  Graham,  on  Chicago  police,  335 

Taylor,  Napoleon  B.,  Judge,  remarks  in  suit  for  removal  of  trustees  of 
Insane  Hospital,  33 

Temporary  appointments,  168  to  170:  in  Chicago,  334 

Tenure  of  Office  Act,  vetoed  by  Taft,  214 

Terre  Haute  post  office,  investigation  of,  96  to  98;  Collector  Bonnell  investi- 
gated, 186,  187 

Testimony  required  from  employees,  168,  169 

Thompson,  E.  P.,  Assistant  Postmaster,  Indianapolis  politician,  53 

Thompson,  Hugh  S.,  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  52,  317 

Tilden  and  Hayes  campaign,  platforms,  297 

Tracewell,  Robert  J.,  Treasury  Controller,  opinion  on  civil  service  law,  lai, 
122 

Tracy,  B.  F,,  Secretary  of  Navy,  registration  of  laborers,  86,  87,  288 

Trade  Commission  bill,  excludes  competition,  229 

Transfers,  168  to  170 

Trial  board,  224,  225;  brief  on,  326  to  336 

Uttley,  Geo.  B,,  Secretary  of  the  Library  Association,  on  Chicago  removal 
rule,  336 

Van  Alen,  J.  J.,  nominated  minister  to  Italy,  contributor  to  campaign 
funds,  99  to  103;  declines  appointment,  102,  103;  Fortun  article  regard- 
ing, 306  to  310 

Vick,  Walter  W.,  receiver  Santo  Domingo,  letter  from  Bryan  to,  229 

Vilas,  Wm.  F.,  Postmaster-General,  order  on  "offensive  partisanship,  "  37, 
38;  on  Dowling  case,  40,  41 

Voorhees,  Daniel  W.,  instigates  political  removals,  Terre  Haute  post  office, 
96 

Waite,  Henry  M.,  Dayton  Manager,  on  removal  rule,  326 

Wakeman,  W.  F.,  appraiser,  removed,  185,  186 

Walker,  Francis  B.,  Superintendent  of  Census,  criticizes  methods,  66 

Wallace,  Wm.,  Indianapolis  Postmaster,  investigated,  52  to  54 

Wanamaker,  John,  collects  campaign  funds,  49,  308,  309;  made  Postmaster- 
General,  49;  testifies  against  Roosevelt,  53,  54;  Foulke's  interview  with, 
54  to  56;  removals  on  secret  charges,  62,  63;  declines  to  appoint  Demo- 
crats, 64;  permits  Baltimore  scandals,  290 

War  Department,  field  branches  classified,  163 

War  period,  effect  on  civil  service  reform,  258,  259 

Washburn,  Wm.  S.,  appointed  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  214;  resigns, 
232 

Webster,  Daniel,  on  spoils  system,  315 


348  INDEX 

Welsh,  Herbert,  impressive  addresses  at  League  dinners,  91 

Wheeler,  Everett  P.,  revises  reform  bill,  7 

White,  Horace,  writes  Cleveland  on  Van  Alen  case,  100 

Wilson,  James,  Secretary  of  Agriculture,  on  civil  service  extensions,  116 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  President,  attitude  toward  civil  service  reform,  first 
term,  226  to  254;  correspondence  on  concealment  eligible  lists,  244  to 
246;  spoils  appointments,  248,  249;  2d  term,  classifies  presidential 
postmasters,  255  to  257 

Williams,  James  T.,  Jr.  appointed  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  214 

Winkler,  Frederick  C.,  on  removals  of  employees,  330 

Wisconsin  passes  civil  service  law,  219 

Wood,  Francis  R.,  investigates  Hicks  case,  130,  131 

Wooley,  E.  W.,  Assistant  Postmaster  of  Jersey  City,  levies  campaign  assess- 
ments, 141,  143 

Wright,  Carroll  D.,  letter  on  census  to  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  75 


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